NAME ORIGIN: Caño Negro means “black creek”, and is named after the dark waters of the creek which bounds it on three sides. The people are descendants of black slaves.
GEOGRAPHY: Caño Negro in northern Venezuela, in the state of Miranda, is located at the end of a dirt road three kilometers from the town of Tapipa. The village is in a valley of lush tropical forests. The average temperature is 28 degrees Celsius. There is a marked wet and dry season and limited fresh water supply in the dry season.
POPULATION: Caño Negro is a village of 250 people, 43 families.
CHALLENGES: The village is faced with a major struggle to break out of its isolation and traditional patterns and to develop social and economic self sufficiency.
HISTORY: This was traditionally a land of haciendas, raising cacao, first with the native Indian labor, then black slaves, and then sharecroppers. The village was founded in 1912, a collection of mud huts inhabited by liberated slaves. A law passed in 1948 made the sharecroppers independent farmers. An agricultural syndicated was formed in 1962 that somewhat stabilized the cacao situation. However, the traditional one-crop subsistence patterns of agriculture continued.
ACCOMPLISHMENTS
Village income doubled by increasing cacao land under cultivation, cacao processing and delivery.
3 new industries provide supplemental income.
Community store saves each family about $200 per year.
Acquisition of 3 vehicles and road leveling has improved transport.
Construction of complete community public works has been done, including a community center, public sanitary facilities, new streets, sidewalks, chapel, plaza and sports fields.
Community initiative is evident in private construction of 41 new homes, the first registered Civil Association in Barlovento, a Youth Commission, task and neighborhood groups and regular village events.
Basic education has been upgraded from 1 to 4 primary teachers, residential school director, new preschool, and construction of a second primary school building.
Cano Negro was the training base for continental leadership to launch five other Latin American projects and trained its own adults in numerous practical courses.
