Helping the Earth, or Tu’ik Ruch’ Lew (TRL) in Tzutujil Maya, is a non-profit organization finding sustainable solutions to environmental problems facing Lake Atitlan and those living on its shores.
Since its establishment in 2016, Helping the Earth has been reducing deforestation through the installation of ONIL clean cookstoves. We’ve installed 350, and the demand continues to grow. This stove consumes only a third of the amount of firewood used by the traditional open fire or common brick pollo and removes smoke from the home. Thus reducing the serious risks of pulmonary disease to mothers and children. Our Tzutujil stove team brings 13 years of stove experience plus nearly 1700 ONIL stoves inherited from a former project, which we are committed to maintaining at their original high level of efficiency. Together, these 2000 stoves have already saved over 120,000 trees, preserving habitat for the Resplendent Quetzal, Guatemala’s national bird, and guarding against dangerous landslides.
In 2018, Helping the Earth teamed with Centro Cristiano Lavastida in Santiago de Cuba to bring biogas digesters to Santiago Atitlan. These systems, which are connected to toilets, can receive all kinds of human and animal waste, producing methane gas that can replace firewood for cooking as well as nutrient-rich solid and liquid fertilizers for vegetable production and coffee groves. Most importantly, they will stop human waste from entering the lake, a critical factor in the rapid eutrophication of Lake Atitlan. Lake contamination is an urgent concern for residents, who remember the lake as a source of abundant food and crystalline drinking water, and it remains the only source of water for most of the lakeside communities.
Visit us on the web at https://www.trlearth.org for more information or to find out how to support our projects.
If you’re interested in volunteering check out our website, it is called Givingway.com. Folks can go on there and search Guatemala and fill out an application from there!
