Comedor Infantil (Food for the Poor Children)

Project Background: 

The three year project, coordinated by the Good Shepherd Sisters, is located in Chimaltenango, Guatemala, where the sisters live and are in permanent contact with the beneficiaries. Each sister takes on a specific role, including coordinating workshops, teaching religion through after-school programs, providing direct support in the soup kitchen, and evaluating the apprenticeship process. 

The Project serves children aged from 2 months to 12 years; 60% are girls and 40% are boys. They are all of Guatemalan nationality, belonging to the ‘Cachiquel’ indigenous group, with their origins in San Martín Jinotepeque, Chimaltenango, Pochuta, Chique and other places. 

75% of the project’s beneficiaries are Catholic and are mostly of pre-school and primary school age. The mothers of these children are mostly single mothers, with families ranging from two children to fifteen children. They are large families and many of them support themselves by polishing shoes, cleaning houses, or washing and caring for vegetables on plantations, where they earn $4.50 a day, working from 7am to 6pm. Others wash and iron clothes, make tortillas, or sell firewood in the market. In some families there are 10 members and only 3 beds; there is a high degree of overcrowding, which is associated with alcoholism, extreme poverty, and the low salaries compared to the cost of living.

Problem:

Poverty is predominantly rural, and higher among the indigenous. Over 81% of the poor and 93% of the extreme poor live in the countryside. Three-quarters of all rural residents live in poverty and one quarter live in extreme poverty. According to the local newspaper ‘La Prensa’ (5^th February 2005), 100 children die of hunger in Guatemala every day.  The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights asked Guatemala to initiate urgent reform in order to boost nutritional standards, so as to halt the death-rate attributed to malnutrition.

Integrating actions to reduce malnutrition into the basic health-care package are extremely urgent. The high and stagnant rates of malnutrition in Guatemala require the highest attention. Their lasting effects also result in inter-generational transmission of poverty. Reducing malnutrition has been designated by both national and international agencies as a top priority. Malnutrition interventions should be provided at the community level through outreach providers, such as the missions of the Sisters of the Good Shepherd, to improve their effectiveness and factor the integration of malnutrition as a key concern into the health system. According to all agencies, the target population for these schemes should be pre-school children (particularly those under 24 months old) and mothers (including pregnant and lactating women).  

Priority actions include:

• Promotion of proper health, hygiene, and feeding practices;
• Growth monitoring of pregnant women and children under aged two;
• Micronutrient supplementation (particularly for iron);
• Deworming treatments and oral rehydration therapy.  
  

Objective:

• Provide food and nutrition to the children of Chumaltenango that are living in situations of extreme poverty,
• Strengthen the quality of nourishment provided, through education and nutrition programs, in order to improve the overall development of these children.
  

Goals:

• To extend the current number of children served by the nutrition program from 207 to 300; thus a total of 300 children will be adequately fed for 3 years,
• Further, their mothers will start income generating activities.
• To improve the quantity of food provided to the children (from one meal a day, to two meals and a snack);
• To improve the quality of the food provided with a balanced diet which would improve their overall development and enable them to improve their academic performance at school;
• To support the mothers in starting small income generating projects (raising pigs and chickens to have food for the family and sell chicks and eggs at the market).
  

It is envisaged that thanks to this program 98% can complete their primary education and 90% will continue with secondary education. 

Activities:

• Nutritional supplement:  to improve the nourishment of the boys and girls.
• After-school programs:  to assign a Sister to help the children with their schoolwork;
• Training and support for the mothers who want to start the income generating activities to improve their economic situation;
• Workshops on social, spiritual, and integration development for the children’s parents.
  

Progress/Results:

In 2009, the Sisters witnessed:

• The Sisters witnessed an increase in the number of both children and mothers who got involved in the nutritional program,
• That the children enjoy coming to the day care, thus freeing up time for the mothers to begin attending adult literacy courses (almost 90% of parents are illiterate).
• The Sisters are now looking for new ways to make the day care self-sustainable.
  

October to December 2008: 63 mothers took part in workshops that included holistic training to build self-esteem and improve personal and family relationships by promoting spiritual and moral values.  

November 2008: 247 children (girls and boys) enrolled for the year 2009.  

25 November 2008: more than 300 people, including all the beneficiaries of the day care center, took part in a rally organized to raise public awareness on the themes of human-trafficking and sexual exploitation of children and women.  

December 2008: A Training Workshop was offered and there were 143 participants, both children and their mothers. They learned how to make piñatas (a pot used for a game done during local festivities). They made over 150 piñatas, which were used during Christmas celebrations. 130 of them were sold to support the food costs of the day care. 

January 2009: An accountant was hired for the day care to take care of the mission’s administration.  

January 2009: The 247 boys and girls (between six months and 12 years) who have been accepted by the day care began to attend lunch at the center. 
 

February 2, 2009: For the first time in the history of the day care, the Sisters began to offer breakfast (6.30 to 7.30am.) to the children. 

Improvements of the Day Care:

Another dining room was repaired and organized to better serve the children. The space previously available was too small to accommodate the increased number of beneficiaries. New tables were bought for them because the children no longer fit in the small tables available for younger children.  

Investment was made in the purchase of a stove to prepare tortillas, thus sparing the amount of money previously needed to buy tortillas. Currently two volunteer mothers assist in preparing tortillas for the beneficiaries. 

The center now has 400 laying hens for the eggs that are given to the children to integrate into their diet.  The project is managed by a board of directors, composed of mothers of the day care children and Good Shepherd Sisters. 

In February the Good Shepherd Sisters found an institution that promised to donate a plot of land to grow vegetables in order to strengthen the self-sustainability of the day care.  

The Good Shepherd Sisters give special thanks to Mr Wallace, a benefactor friend of Handcrafting Justice (New York, USA),  for his generosity in helping to fund this project.