“Ways Out of Poverty Exist, It’s a Matter of Discovering Them”

It is the small farmers and not the “agronomist” who must solve the existing problems, says Carlos Ruiz, the new MS Programme Officer in Honduras.

By Eva Rasmussen

30. June 2005

Carlos Ruiz thinks that when we wake up each morning we should ask ourselves: “What can I do today to contribute toward a world of opportunity for all?” He is a 42-year-old agronomist, father of two daughters and a son, and the first MS Programme Officer stationed in Honduras. 

“We must be realistic and stop thinking that this new world would be waiting for us on Saturday if we only start building it on Friday”, underlines Ruiz, who for his entire professional life has worked on development projects, not only in his home country, Honduras, but also in Nicaragua and Guatemala.

Carlos Ruiz comes to MS from World Vision, an international development and emergency aid organisation, where he worked as the co-ordinator of an economic development programme for communities living in north-western Honduras. 

“Economic development is almost always limited to the financial aspect, but my task was to convince people to view the concept from a broader perspective”, he tells us.

“The small farmers or campesinos usually know how to produce, but not that much about how the market operates, or how they can become good merchants. My challenge was to establish a technical team, that now supports farmers in marketing.” 

If the Cheese Vendor Can Do It … 

After a month of introduction to MS, Carlos will get established at his new office in the Honduran capital Tegucigalpa, a space shared with Ibis Denmark, Forum Syd of Sweden and the North American organisation Christian Aid. 

“I have worked with small, marginalized agricultural producers, and they have taught me that it is possible to escape the poverty trap. The ways out of poverty exist, it’s a matter of discovering them” he says, adding that it is important to start in the places people are at. 

“For example, I have seen children lie down and sleep on top of pesticide bags, so as to avoid the cold ground. What could I do in that situation? Well, try to inform their parents how to store and use toxic substances more safely. So I invited people to a workshop on pesticides, but there was no interest. Only two or three persons showed up. One day, when I was sitting outside my home, I noticed quite a hubbub in the street. In the distance I could hear the voice of a cheese vendor booming from the loudspeakers atop his pick-up truck. As he parked, people formed a line to buy cheese from him. At that moment it occurred to me: “If the cheese vendor can do it, so can I.” So I borrowed a loudspeaker from the local Health Centre, mounted it on my car and drove up and down the streets, announcing my workshops. Sure enough, it worked. After that, I never had less than 30 persons in attendance.”

Paid Participation 

Another way to ensure participation is to “pay” people to attend by, for instance, offering them a meal. This was the methodology used by Carlos Ruiz at his first job as facilitator for a land improvement project. 

“People came, of course, but then it turned out that the meals rather than the information we gave them became the reason why they attended. When the project’s second phase came about, the technical team was informed that now we had to convince people to come for the sake of learning, because food would no longer be provided. That was a challenge. More or less half the participants left the project, and we had to do some creative thinking so as not to loose the rest. This process taught me to listen to people, how they define their own needs, which should obviously be the point of departure for any co-operation effort. It is not the ‘agronomist’ who must come up with a solution, it’s the people themselves, who know more about the situation on the ground.”

We All Have Something to Contribute

The MS programme in Central America concentrates mainly on advocacy and communication. Carlos Ruiz hopes to be able to contribute to creating a space for marginalized persons who usually have nowhere to go and tell others about the reality they live. 

“We must try and influence development from below, and not the other way around, which is what normally happens”, emphasises Ruiz. 

“We all have something to contribute, but we need to do it with the logic of our bodies. We cannot ask our eyes to hear or our ears to see. Put otherwise, why ask a good writer to make a table?”

Eva Rasmussen is an Information Development Worker at MS CA