Empower Guatemalan Families With Food & Nutrition

Thanks to you, Seeds for a Future qualified for a permanent position on GlobalGiving and we hope our presence will give people who share our passion for helping the rural poor of Guatemala, a place to come and express their support.   

Our work continues in Chocolá and we invite you to follow our updates and “news from Chocolá” on www.facebook.com/seedsforafuture.  If you are inclined to “Like” the site and “share” it with others, you help build the circle of friends we need to continue this work.  We have our first youtube video about our overall work prepared by a volunteer  ... please see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zIvFskDQpU&feature=youtube_gdata_player

We are in the rainy season, a good time for growing vegetables and 250 members of Seeds for a Future program are busy doing so.

Seeds for the Future formed an alliance with another NGO (Semilla Nueva) which teaches farmers in six communities the economic and production values of abandoning “slash and burn” agriculture and in growing non-GMO corn and bean products high in protein and trace minerals.  Their educators come to Chocolá to teach our staff skills appurtenant to our program and we in turn send teachers to help their families get started in vegetable and small animal production.  In effect, this alliance brings our educators in touch with women in six new communities in addition to the four in our core program. The important thing is that the program to fight malnutrition that you have helped make a reality in one community is spreading and is laying claim to being a new strategic grass roots model program that works.

2014 CAMPAIGN:  FIGHTING PATHOGEN TRANSMISSION IN FOOD HANDLING IN THE HOME.

As women advance their skills in growing their own food, we continue to explore with them what would add value to their learning experience.  One persistent health related topic traces to their growing awareness that family members, and particularly children, can enjoy better health if mothers know more about the basics of how to keep the food they prepare for their families as free of pathogens as they can.

 Seeds is preparing a program to bring qualified educators into the gardening groups to teach them about the importance of clean kitchens and the fundamentals of pathogen avoidance when handling food. The training will outreach to 250 families and through them, to perhaps 1,000 additional families of participant’s sisters, mothers, daughters, nieces and so on.  The training will have a permanent impact on the lives of participants because what is given them is knowledge and skills that can last a lifetime and be transmitted to their friends, offspring and extended family.

 This initiative is compatible with our larger campaign fighting malnutrition. Health care professionals in Guatemala tell us that they are forever seeing the same kids and mothers in their clinics to treat health issues that trace to coming into repeated contact with pathogens in their water, on food purchased in the markets or on the hands of food handlers. The results are problems such as chronic diarrhea, colds, influenza, worms and so on.  Teaching moms how to avoid these pathogens is fundamental to family health.