The Centre of Rural Studies for Organic and Sustainable Development of the Communities has been established as a school where our sons and daughters are able to better prepare for work with the organization.  Almost all of our children have the opportunity to attend secondary school and more, but when they complete their studies they don't wish to return to help us because the schools in the cities dampen their desire to live like their parents and compatriots in the mountains.  

In December 1985, we began the experience of the CEC in the priest's lodgings at the church in San José el Paraiso.  Soon after, the community gave us 6 hectares of land.  The location of the school is very beautiful.  The Centre of Rural Studies has been constructed with classrooms, meeting spaces, and dormitories for both students and teachers.  It is a boarding school for some 25 students who receive 12 months of study and upon completion begin their community service. 

The Centre for Rural Studies (CEC) is also where those involved in the organic project receive their training.  Those involved are campesinos from each community who have the job of following-up with the organic project in each community.  Some of the tasks they are responsible for include:  non-chemical pest control, improving organic cultivation, developing ways to better allocate the use of natural resources, foodstuff cultivation, horticulture, and raising of chickens, other foul, cows, etc.  At CEC, we also prepare inspectors who are in charge of the internal inspection of sustainable coffee which UCIRI is now producing. The Centre employs a coordinated team, with some teachers being campesinos from the region.   

At CEC, students are taught in the ways of organic agriculture and are trained to be organic agriculture technicians.  Technicians are commited to the values and objectives of UCIRI, and help communities in areas of agriculture that they may need assistance with.  CEC technicians have gone on to work in UCIRI communities, as well as other organizations in the states of Oaxaca, Chiapas, Guerrero, Puebla, Hidalgo and Veracruz.  We have also had students from Guatemala and Bolivia attend CEC.

CEC OBJECTIVE:

To provide for young campesinos the knowledge and application of the methods and techniques to preserve and improve life in the mountains, sharing amongst them a reflection of its realities.

GOALS:

1.  To integrate ourselves into UCIRI and the region's communities, participating not only as beneficiaries but as members in the struggle.

2.  To generate a process of community participation with CEC's activities, so that the activities might be oriented toward the needs, knowledge and the organization of campesinos.

3.  To form a select group of young adults from the communities, trained as UCIRI organic technicians to promote, organize, and build regional capacity through concrete alternative actions that will elevate production and benefits for campesino farmers.  

4.  To contribute diverse services, assessments and support to community and regional activities, by means of elaborating the school's programs, work, and training which staff and students of CEC carry out with campesinos.

5.  Propagate the self-management and self-sufficiency of CEC, so that it may serve not only as a direct service to the communities but also as an example of the possibilities of development that the organization, training and organic agriculture offer for all campesino farmers in the region.