Food Security Guatemala Project #53440

Food creativity: healthier families in Guatemala

by Come Mejor Wa'ik

Food creativity: healthier families in Guatemala

Summary

From serving 18 families in 2020 to 400 families in 2025! That is how we have grown together in the village of Concepcion Pinula delivering healthy and nutritious fruits and veggies. It has been a creative ride, where we have challenged misconceptions on food, towards educating in the most fun and dynamic way entire families, engaging the youngest to the elderly. We have seen the change in the village, with better and critical decision-making, to themselves becoming healthy food entrepreneurs!

$20,000
total goal

$3,725
remaining

113
donors

3
monthly donors

4
years

Challenge

Nutrition and health are often misunderstood, and are not integrated into our daily lives because of the barriers created by technical language, uneven access to food and information. Guatemala has the highest stunting rate in Latin America, growing hunger, overweight, obesity, and non-communicable diseases. Yet all of these forms of malnutrition are being tackled separately. An agricultural country, the value of produce is disregarded to aspirational industrialized foods.

Solution

All forms of malnutrition should be intertwined and integrated as a whole. Our purpose with Eat Better Wa'ik is for girls, boys, women, men and all the population to engage in their food choices more critically and naturally. Therefore, since 2020 we have been delivering fruits and veggies to Concepcion Pinula as a natural response and recovery from a health pandemic (COVID), to engage directly with produce that will restore health and their knowledge from and towards food.

Long-Term Impact

Thanks to community for its co-leadership and participation in the project, the neighbors have been fully active within the transformation of their village. The impact we have seen up to now has been improved knowledge and decision making when it comes to food and health, an increase in consumption and production of fruits and veggies, reduction of illnesses, improved care during pregnancy and lactation; and most importantly, new small stores selling fruits and veggies. And more to come!