U2’s Bono Endorses CEPAD

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Bono and his wife, Ali, (to his left), at the Greenbelt Arts Festival in 1987 listening to Gustavo Parajón speak.

We are so pleased and honored to share some news of amazing support that we have recently received from the band U2.

CEPAD’s founder, Gustavo Parajón, was a very humble man who quietly developed friendships with many influential  people around the world. He almost never shared about these relationships outside of his own family.

Dr. Parajón became connected with the band U2 in the late 1980’s after meeting lead singer Bono at a concert by Bruce Cockburn at the Greenbelt Arts Festival in England. Bono and his wife Ali had visited Nicaragua and Central America in the mid-1980’s and some of the songs on their album, The Joshua Tree, were inspired by that visit.

During  2017, U2 has been on a 30th anniversary tour of the Joshua Tree album and chose CEPAD to be listed in the tour program as an organization the band supports. This is truly a great honor for CEPAD and we are so grateful to be recognized in this way.

A Story of Before and After (Made Possible by You!)

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Santos Gladys Rizo is a mother of 6 children and a farmer in the village of El Bramadero 2. Before she started working with CEPAD she had almost no trees on her land. Now, thanks to training and a water capture system she has begun to reforest her land and has diversified her crops so her family no longer has to purchase vegetables; they can eat from what she has planted.

I began working in my plot and using techniques I learned in the trainings [with CEPAD]. I also planted corn with cucumbers, papaya, citrus trees and spinach. I saw that this technique gave us good results. I began making organic compost, insecticide for pests and fertilizers and repellants and I saw that they gave me results. Now I don’t have use chemicals and I don’t burn my plot and I don’t have to go crazy looking for seeds and the chemicals because I make them myself. I also have my water capture system.

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