EARTH University
Program partner

EARTH (Escuela de Agricultura de la Región Tropical Húmeda) University is a long-standing partner of SHI. Based in Costa Rica, EARTH University offers a world-class education, hands-on training in sustainable development, and an undergraduate degree in Agricultural Sciences. Working with students from Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa and other regions, EARTH’s mission is to “prepare leaders with ethical values to contribute to sustainable development and to construct a prosperous and just society.”

In 2015, SHI and EARTH established an internship program for students to get hands-on experience with sustainable agriculture and community development.

Adriana Benavides of EARTH University sat down with us to reflect on SHI and EARTH University’s partnership and community efforts.

a vibrant partnership

Adriana is a trained psychologist who has been at EARTH University for nearly 10 years. She coordinates EARTH’s internship program. She was an instrumental part of establishing the SHI internship, and believed deeply in the fruitful opportunity for collaboration.

“Right from the beginning, we had a great connection because the mission of our two organizations is quite similar – we’re aligned with sustainable development to create prosperous societies,” says Adriana.

Adriana has always been inspired by interns’ experiences with SHI, which she describes as positive and inclusive. “The internship program is very important in how it’s community-driven. This experiential learning is what makes the internship successful.”

In 2019, Adriana visited interns in Honduras to see the work in action. She learned about the different types of farmers and saw projects that have been successfully sustainable over time. “It was really important for me to see people graduating from SHI’s program who continue to produce or have become small business entrepreneurs, and to see the transformation,” she says.

Adriana’s trip to Honduras left a strong impression on her. Above all else, she valued the opportunity to see how interns immersed themselves in the experience, learning firsthand how to advance sustainable agriculture and community development.

EARTH interns spend an entire semester applying their skills and knowledge to support SHI’s programs in-person. Interns’ projects have varied widely. Heinert Portillo, an EARTH intern from 2016, helped create maps of remote Honduran villages. And more recent intern projects included the introduction of soldier flies as a food source for chickens and fish and researching reforestation and water catchment through remote sensing and satellite imagery.

No matter the project, interns’ research helps advance knowledge on regenerative agriculture and sustainable technologies.

And their research has had a big impact. Research findings have been published in several academic papers, including articles on improved stove efficiency, seed distribution networks, and the impact of crop diversification on health and diets. Interns’ research was even presented at Tropentag 2019, a prestigious agriculture conference in Germany.

In addition to the internship program, there’s been a vibrant and ongoing exchange of knowledge and information between the two organizations. SHI staff would go to the EARTH campus to work with professors there. SHI and EARTH even hosted staff training programs together. Today, Dr. José Zaglul, the founding president of EARTH University (1989-2016), serves on SHI’s Board of Directors and Leonardo Pech, a EARTH University graduate, is the SHI-Belize Country Director.

Adriana believes that supporting the work of SHI and EARTH University is how we can create change. “SHI is an organization that’s committed to the communities, its members, and sustainable agriculture,” she says. She captures her thoughts succinctly, saying, “It’s not just about creating impact for a single moment in time, rather one that keeps on growing and growing to create a prosperous and just society.”

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