Sponsor Shipibo Youth Permaculture Training

Just under two months ago, we set up the second stage of a project in the indigenous Shipibo community of Puerto Firmeza where last year a Mexican nutritionist, Mariana, was working with us to run workshops for a group of mothers to teach them about  balanced and healthy nutrition for their families. Mariana did this through the medium of cooking meals together with the women of the communities and adapting traditional recipes to include the nutrients that she had identified were missing in their diet as they changed from a traditional diet to a more Western based diet (including more carbohydrates and sugars into their diet).

In this new phase of the program we are supporting the mothers to continue to cook together and also to offer a lunch of high nutritional value once a week to the children at the local school, which uses produce locally grown at the permaculture project attached to the community. The delightful thing to see is how the mothers are implementing what they learnt in the first phase in this second phase without needing the support of a nutritionist. An additional exciting development is that the program is now run coordinated by two young Shipibo women, Liz and Marleni. Liz is our administrative assistant and has always dreamed of becoming a nutritionist or a pediatrician. Marleni is a trained nurse who brings her scientific knowhow about the human body to these classes, all in their indigenous language. Additionally, Marleni will be continuing her studies into the masters level with a scholarship through Alianza Arkana later this year. We are very excited to see these Shipibo women emerge as community leaders.

The dedication and progress the mothers are making towards the promotion of healthy diet choices in puesuit of seeing their children thrive is really an inspiring one to watch. It is thanks to the support of people like you that this project continues to be such a success!