Homegrown Heroes
Agriculture School - Paraguay

Escuela Agricola is a self-sufficient school that turns smallholders into success stories.

Paraguay is one of the poorest countries in Latin America. Two-thirds of the land is in the hands of two percent of the population. The rest is shared out among the majority: the smallholder 'campesinos'. Martin Burt - a former mayor of the capital Asuncion - set up the Escuela Agricola to help these campesinos overturn decades of economic disadvantage. As Martin explains, "We target the poorest of the poor, and we aim to turn them from peasants into rural entrepreneurs."

Escuela Agricola teaches its students to make the most of their families' land through the latest organic techniques. It also teaches more general life skills such as literacy, numeracy and sexual health. The school is entirely self-sufficient, growing much of its own food and selling value-added products such as cheese and yoghurts. There's even a hotel on site where city folk can experience life in this rural idyll.

City visitors see the students not as poor peasants but in an atmosphere of modernity, prosperity and wealth," says Martin. "For some reason the official curriculum of the ministry of education avoids how to teach kids how to earn money. We believe that teaching how to save, to invest and to earn money is very important in real life and this school teaches them that."

World Challenge Stays in Touch

Two years ago World Challenge filmed the story of an agricultural school in Paraguay where very poor students - mostly kids of smallholders - were trained in sustainable farming. The Escuela Agricola of the Fundacion Paraguaya mostly pays for itself by selling the products grown by the 'student farmers. It was the brainchild of Martin Burt, a former Mayor of Asuncion Martin Burt and his School was chosen by viewers as runner up in our competition. Last month (April) we went back to film for the 5 minute 'Catch Up' section of the next series.

One of the students we filmed two years ago has now graduated. She came from an extremely poor family in the north of the country and now with the help of the school she is working as a small loan's officer in a small rural town, providing credits to women groups that also benefit from her advice on how to make their small plots of land more productive. She drives her own motorcycle to her office at the microcredit bank she now works in and has no doubts that it was her experience in the school that helped her change her destiny.

Martin Burt has also moved forward. The money from the award was used to improve facilities in the classroom but the real bonus was the publicity surrounding World Challenge that encouraged institutions like the Nike Foundation to invest in his concept of education that pays for itself.

We visited a new school for girls he has just opened in a remote region of southern Paraguay bordering a National Park. This time his aim is not just to train students in better agricultural practices, but to ceate environmental professionals who also get jobs in forestry and take care of the Park.