Establishing Village Cacao Processing Business April 1995 - March 1996 Cano Negro, Venezuela Funded by: MOFA Implemented by: ICA Venezuela, ICA Japan and local people
1. Residents in Cano Negro are mainly Mestiso, black people, and Indios. Poverty is a big problem in the villages; this project was carried out to improve the production of cacao, their only income source, and start a community owned cacao business for self-support. "Lively, better community for the next generation" was the Cano Negro women's dream.
Cano Nego's Cacao techniques before the project
	2. People dried cacao on the streets before they built the cacao drying and processing facilities. This made the quality of their cacao very low, and so it was difficult to sell in the market.
	3. Cacao could easily get putrid because of rain, excessive sun, and car contamination because of drying it on the streets. They have wanted a drying facility for a long time.
	4. Their low quality cacao used to be sold at very low prices because of their lack of processing facilities and techniques. Cacao could not bring income to people.
Community Meeting
	5. People had an idea in their mind, but no idea how to get and organize the resources.
	6. Many village meetings took place to think through how they could begin the project, since they had no resources. "Who should own the facilities? Where should it be? How will we get enough money? Who will be the workers?" Many questions were raised.
	7. Many villagers joined in the meetings, and brought various ideas to promote the project.
	8. ICA:Japan said "Yes" to assist realizing Cano Negro people's dream, and the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs also decided to support the project. The good news was soon reported to the community people.
	9. The idea of developing cacao business brought dearms in peoples mind. People began considering it to be their key for developing the community.
To Realize the Project
	10. Cooperation of the local cacao industries is needed to operate a cacao business. They began looking for a suitable partner.
	11. ICA:Venezuela staff visited various organizations to get their cooperation. They got CESAP as a financial and accounting advisor, AVEPANE as a researching partner, and EIRey, a big Venezuelan chocolate company, as their business management advisor.
	12. They got a contract with the Asociacion de Productores de Cacao for purchasing Cano Cacao products. They also got advice in agricultural techniques from Fondo National del Cacao.
Preparation for Construction
	13. The construction site is in the bush. The road was impassable for cars, so they had to start with making a passable road. Grass and little plants appeared over and over again and covered the road.
	14. The road to the construction site quickly gets many deep potholes when rain comes. It was hectic work to carry heavy construction materials in the rain. The house is a typical poor Cano Negro's house. Some people live in such a inconvenient place.
	15. Young village people worked hard on prepararion for constructing the cacao processing facilities.
	16. They considered very carefully about how large space they would need for the construction.
	17. Mirla, one of the ICA staff. Female staff encouraged workers with hot soup.
	18. Villagers talked about the next step over soup after work.
	19. They finally got enough space to construct the building after a lot of work with machetes.
	20. Myriam, an ICA staff, director, is talking about construction with Domingo, one of the community leaders.
Purchasing Construction Materials
	21. Construction materials such as iron materials, pipe, and cement were purchased and stored in the ICA office.
	22. Everything got prepared and construction started.
	23. Foundation work for the processing facilities.
	24. The new building has an administration office. They keep agricultural tools such as rakes, shovels, and machetes, weigh balances, and fertilizers as well as cacao.
	25. The main entrance of the cacao processing building. The door was installed by the engineer, and the building is almost completed.
Completed Facility
	26. Completed cacao facility made of cement blocks which is 20 long, 5 meters wide, and 6 meters high.
	27. Thanks to the processing facility, there will be no more contaminated cacao.
	28. The village people who worked hard everyday on construction stand in the huge doorway.
New Hope through Cacao
	29. Village people celebrating completion of the facilities. People got much hope and confidence through this project.
	30. Making a stable cacao business also means a lot in terms of giving jobs to young people.
For the Next Generation
	31. Cano Negro has started to move toward bright future where everybody is smiling.

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