The TPP grant offered strong emotional support and hope to the community of indigenous women of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta (SNSM), to The Great Balance (TGB), to the Bunchanawin Indigenous Women’s Center and to myself as the coordinator of the project. You were our first grantor allowing us to initiate a critical program, the One Million Trees Project. This project is focused on reforestation and watershed preservation in the SNSM.
This seed money was a cause for celebration in the SNSM, known as the Heart of the World by the indigenous tribes who live there. Your seed grant gave us confidence in our ability to bring in additional resources. Several indigenous women, accompanied by members of the community, established the first plant nursery and started growing the selected species of trees. Most of these trees were planted as seeds and a few as seedlings. In addition to the TPP grant, our team at The Great Balance raised additional funds to plant a total of 1500 trees by the end of January 2016.
