{"id":210622,"date":"2024-05-23T16:11:36","date_gmt":"2024-05-23T16:11:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.internetsociety.org\/?page_id=210622"},"modified":"2025-09-23T12:34:31","modified_gmt":"2025-09-23T12:34:31","slug":"expanding-economic-opportunities-in-the-paraguayan-chaco","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.internetsociety.org\/issues\/community-networks\/success-stories\/paraguayan-chaco\/","title":{"rendered":"Expanding Economic Opportunities in the Paraguayan Chaco"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Expanding
Economic Opportunities
in the Paraguayan Chaco<\/h1>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/section>\n\n\n\n
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Three women sit near a pile of carob fruits, wearing masks and hair nets. They pick a few of them out, separating those they are about to grind into carob flour, filling large white bags that take most of the room. The flour is used for baking cakes, crackers, bread, and other goods and has seen growing demand. Coffee shops, restaurants, and organic produce stores use it for their dishes or sell it for high prices in Paraguay\u2019s capital city, Asunci\u00f3n. Most of it is produced in the Chaco region by women from the native Nivacl\u00e9 communities, and for a long time, they have relied on outside distributors to take their flour to the city. Now, they are doing it online.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWith technology, I can sell my produce elsewhere,\u201d says Rogelia P\u00e9rez, a representative of the Fa\u2019ay Lhavoquey\u2014the Women Carob Harvesters Group. \u201cI post it on social media, and people place orders.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

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The Nivacl\u00e9 are Indigenous people living in lands across the South American Chaco, in Paraguay, northern Argentina, and southern Bolivia. Funded by the Internet Society, the NANUM Connected Women Project\u2014a transnational and multi-organization initiative to connect Indigenous women living in the Chaco\u2014worked with nearly twenty Nivacl\u00e9 communities in Paraguay\u2019s Boquer\u00f3n department. There, carob harvesting is their main occupation and one that brings promises of economic opportunities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But before the NANUM Connected Women initiative started work, the communities were digitally isolated. Connectivity was scarce, and in the few places where it was available, it was more expensive than people could afford. The service was sufferable at best. Not many people, including the teachers in the local schools, had Internet-enabled devices. Both children and faculty were struggling to keep up with a connected world in an unconnected reality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Today, we need the Internet. People have the right to use it, and we, Indigenous peoples, also have this right. The Internet will offer us a path to develop new skills.\u201d<\/div>