500 Healthy Kids

COVID-19’s impact on Guatemala has been profound and devastating. Most disheartening is the fact that children – and young children especially – are bearing the incredible burden of the pandemic. Guatemala has one of the highest child malnutrition rates in the world, with 72% of children in the highland regions experiencing moderate or acute malnutrition.



Before the pandemic, children would receive 1-2 meals a day through school health programs. Since the onset of Covid-19, jobs are scarce, schools have closed, and malnutrition is on the rise.

 

The Instituto Mesoamericano de Permacultura - IMAP (Mesoamerican Permaculture Institute) is a Mayan-run non-profit organization in San Lucas Tolimán, Guatemala, that has spent the last 20 years empowering Indigenous farmers to combat poverty and malnutrition through ecological agriculture education. If you don’t know about IMAP, you can check out our website .

Recognizing the need to help families affected by the pandemic, we have been delivering a nutritional complement in the form of a warm drink (“atol”) made from amaranth to those who need it most. The protein content of amaranth is unusually high, and it is a good source of magnesium and phosphorus.



Producing the nutritional drink also provides employment for the farmers that grow amaranth, and for the team that processes it.

So far, we have delivered 9,100 lbs of atol to vulnerable families. We have subsidized over 60% of the cost of the atol, making it affordable for local people to purchase.



The goal is to reach $5,000* USD in order to continue our work and distribute the amaranth dietary supplement to as many as 500 children.

Here’s where your money goes:

·   $5 will give 1 family a package of amaranth seeds

·  $10 will offer 1 family the dietary supplement for 1 month

·  $50 will offer 1 family the dietary supplement for 5 months

·   $100 will enable 1 family to establish a garden (seeds & technical support)

* Who I Am / Money Transfers
My name is Myriam. In 2011, I went to Guatemala to volunteer at the Instituto Mesoamericano de Permacultura (IMAP), and ended up living in a nearby community for the next 8 years. IMAP is one of those places that grabs onto your heart and never lets go.  

Since this crowdfunding platform doesn’t currently support Guatemalan accounts, the funds will go into the account of a Canadian NGO of which I am a co-founder - the Ecology and Solidarity Council (ECOSOL). ECOSOL was born out of a desire to directly  support organizations like IMAP. You can check out our website here  if you want to know more about us. We will transfer the money directly into IMAP’s account.