News published: 17 March 2023

On March 11, The Padre Julio Marrero Botanic Garden (PJMBG), located in the province of Santo Domingo (Ecuador), presented an international cooperation project with the University of La Laguna from Tenerife island (Spain) and which is financed by the government of the Canary Islands.

The project is aimed at women from the communities near the botanical garden and will try to provide training for the creation of micro-enterprises based on the production and marketing of aromatic, ornamental, and medicinal plants.

The first information day, which brought together more than 50 women, was attended by the authorities Lidia Cabrera Pérez, Projection, Internationalization and Cooperation vice chancellor from La Laguna University, and the-pro rector of the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador sede Santo Domingo, and María Luján González who also runs the PJMBG.

The training includes four modules: agricultural training, entrepreneurship, financing plan, and marketing plan, gathering the basic knowledge necessary to create a business idea from their own experience in growing plants. Women from the community have patios in their homes, undervalued in most cases, but with great potential for the production and conservation of plant resources. It is common to find that many of these patios are a great biodiversity of plants and their traditional uses are still preserved. This project proposes to give value to these spaces while promoting the empowerment of women and contributing to the family economy.

Part of the funds will be invested in the creation of greenhouses, in which the women will receive horticultural knowledge on the propagation and management of container plant cultivation that will allow them to produce plants in their patios. In addition to providing the knowledge to generate their own commercial products, it represents an opportunity to introduce part the garden work, through the environmental education program, to their children to enjoy.

With this collaboration, it is also intended to consolidate a network of collaborating centers that receive teachers and students for research and educational practices that take place in the botanical garden.