Food Security Guatemala Project #13523

Empower Guatemalan Families With Food & Nutrition

by Seeds for a Future

Project Report | Jan 29, 2014
Adding More Nutrition and Clean Kitchen Learning

By Karen Kahn | Board member (based on recent visit)

Typical stoves usually lack vents to remove smoke

Thanks to all of you who have helped with this life-saving program fighting malnutrition. We are now expanding the education component to teach rural families, particularly women and other food handlers, the basics on how to avoid transmitting pathogens to their family and children in the preparation and serving of meals. As supporters of this program, you may be aware that illnesses such as chronic diarrhea and stomach / intestinal parasites are a contributing factor in malnutrition and death of children.

Part of the challenge is to help women who cannot afford a better cooking and water handling area to nevertheless understand and use good health practices. With the beginning of the new year, we are happy to report that the clean kitchens initiative is progressing well, as instructors and field staff have completed their training and we will be moving forward to Phase II in February.

In the coming months, the program will be expanded to reach all families currrentlyt in the food security and nutrition program as well as outreach to additional villages as well as the nearby municipality of Santo Tomas La Union. We expect that by year end, we will reach more than 250 households and that they in turn will pass what they have learned to their extended families and neighbors.

We appreciate your support for this important educational program and note that a contribution of any amount will help us reach target families with the training and support they need to attain clean water and clean kitchens of their own and to help others learn how to do the same. The family gardens program continues to produce wonderful results in fighting malnutrition and we thank you deeply for your caring and for your support.

The photos below show some of the problems associated with typical cooking areas, such as smoke which can cause eye and lung diseases, difficult to clean surfaces, and unfiltered or unsafely stored water, as well as some of the improvements that are being made.

Smoke inside = health problems for moms & kids

Some cooking still occurs over ground-level fires

Most stoves offer kids no protection against burns

Mom & daughter are proud of new vented stove

Cooking on vented stove w/ easy-to-clean surfaces

Water storage & use can also be health issues

Links:

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Oct 30, 2013
Family Gardens Participants Celebrate Their Success

By Suzanne de Berge | President

One of 5 Cooking Teams prepares their specialty

Recently, families in the Seeds for a Future vegetable garden training program in Chocola held a COOKING FIELD DAY in the local park to celebrate their success in working together, learning to grow their own food and making a direct attack on the malnutrition that is estimated by the UN to affect over 50 percent of children and adults in Guatemala.

Each cooking team chose the dishes they would prepare using the nutritious herbs and vegetables they had grown in their home gardens. Foods included several types of tamalitos; a rich soup featuring a particular herb; cabbage, carrot and onion salad; bamboo shoot salad; chicken in jalapeño and onion salsa, and much more. So that members can learn from each other new tasty ways to enhance the nutritional value of their family meals,
the recipes have been compiled and the recipe book is nearly ready for distribution.

The photos show what we admire about the women and their families in this rural village -- their determination, hope, good spirits and teamwork. In a community long guided by fixed ways of doing things, these people are true pioneers, breaking new ground by putting to use modern knowledge about food, nutrition and the benefits of a good diet.

This grass roots program is proving the efficacy and sustainability of teaching rural families, and most particularly women, to be more food self-reliant by growing at home a wide range of vegetables and herbs chosen especially for their high levels of nutrition, as well as poultry and rabbits for protein, to improve and balance family diets. So far, more than 250 families have joined the program and it continues to grow, with new members coming from an expanding circle of villages.

Thank you so much for your continuing support!

Wrapped in leaves, corn husk ties -- ready to cook

Happy boys anticipating delicious treats

Making home-grown coleslaw salad

A cooking team at their "prep table" in the park

A proud participant with her daughter

Links:

Seeds' Facebook page

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Jul 8, 2013
Update on Fighting Malnutrition in Rural Guatemala

By Earl Vincente de Berge | Board member

One of our community leaders, Dona Dominga

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.

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