Guatemala:
Ending Hunger —
the first, simple Step

It  all startetd as a rather spon­ta­neous relief oper­a­tion. Through desper­ate moth­ers, those respon­si­ble at Aldea Infan­til learnt about the situ­a­tion on the ground in the villages of the surround­ing high­lands in Guatemala. Hunger and malnu­tri­tion are a constant compan­ion for many fami­lies there. The Children’s Future Foun­da­tion there­fore decid­ed to break the vicious circle in at least two villages — Monrovia and La Esper­an­za. What began with indi­vid­ual aid programmes devel­oped into perma­nent exter­nal projects. This time we want to report on them in our Valdivia News­room series Future: Social.

For 1 euro a day

The high­lands of Guatemala are no trop­i­cal paradise. There is abject pover­ty in the villages. Many moth­ers are left to fend for them­selves and often do not know how to put the next meal on the table for their chil­dren. In order to alle­vi­ate the most urgent need, the foun­da­tion there­fore priori­tis­es free meals for the chil­dren — for the low price of 1 euro per child per day!

This not only gives the chil­dren a healthy start to the day, but also allows them to concen­trate on their school lessons. Ending hunger is there­fore more than just avert­ing acute need: it is the first, irre­place­able step on the way out of pover­ty and into a better future. In addi­tion, the people receive medical care from the doctors and dentists asso­ci­at­ed with Aldea Infan­til. They regu­lar­ly visit the projects, provide infor­ma­tion on dental care and person­al hygiene and carry out medical check-ups.

Moth­ers are the key

But food, educa­tion and health are not just three burn­ing issues. Rather, these factors are inter­linked and any mean­ing­ful aid must take this into account. The start­ing point is the moth­ers. They receive train­ing in vegetable grow­ing and live­stock farm­ing, gener­al hygiene and health care, fami­ly plan­ning and contra­cep­tion. This knowl­edge also increas­es their self-esteem — an advan­tage that should not be under­es­ti­mat­ed in the still strong­ly tradi­tion­al soci­ety of rural Guatemala.

Places of hope

The foun­da­tion is current­ly support­ing a total of 231 fami­lies with 400 chil­dren in the two villages in this way — a huge­ly impor­tant help. This is because the Aldea Infan­til itself can only take in a limit­ed number of chil­dren — espe­cial­ly those who would other­wise have no place at all. The exter­nal projects, on the other hand, start before­hand and, at least for the chil­dren from Monrovia and La Esper­an­za, prevent things from getting that far in the first place.

In this way, the Children’s Future Foun­da­tion not only creates places of hope in the plagued coun­try. It also demon­strates that target­ed aid can achieve a great deal with rela­tive­ly small resources — an expe­ri­ence that we now under­stand well thanks to our close contacts . And we invite you to share this expe­ri­ence: Help­ing in a mean­ing­ful way and making a posi­tive differ­ence also shows that we can defi­nite­ly make a differ­ence in today’s diffi­cult times.

Children’s Future Foun­da­tion (Stfi­tung Kinderzukunft)

Rabenaus­traße 1a, D‑63584 Gründau

Vera Berd­ing

Head of Market­ing and Public Relations

Phone: +49 60 51 48 18 16

Fax: +49 60 51 48 18 10

E‑mail: vera.berding@kinderzukunft.de

Web: www.kinderzukunft.de 

Dona­tion account: Commerzbank Hanau

IBAN: DE79 5064 0015 0222 2222 00

BIC: COBADEFFXXX

Please add “Valdivia Future — Children’s Village Guatemala” as reference.

(Image source: Stiftung Kinderzukunft)