With $110.00 credit from the CESSMAQ-established local community bank, a Mayan woman purchased a full-grown sow and a share of the services of a boar. CESSMAQ facilitators taught the women how to care for their sow and how to take care of the baby pigs when they are born.

In approximately 6 months, the sow bore a litter of about 6 pigs. When these pigs were three months old, they were sold for $35.00 each - a total of $210.00. This was enough money to pay off the loan, and to have some left over to buy better food for her family or clothing and school supplies for her children.

CESSMAQ required the women who wish to participate in the project to open a bank account and to keep records of the income and expense associated with the project. In this way, they not only learned how to take care of the livestock but how to account for the proceeds as well.

This project was very successful for CESSMAQ and the Mayan women - so successful that the local markets were saturated with piglets! The women were able to repay their loans, and to use their profits for other money-making projects as well as to provide a more secure living for their families. CESSMAQ is using the repaid loan money to assist other "socio-productive" projects in the communities they serve.

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One woman's pig