It's nearly Christmas and end-of-year! We are grateful for your wonderful support this year, we can't wait for you to participate even more in 2023! This last semester we revamped our international presence, as well as finalizing this year's food deliveries with an ultimate high community participation! Read us on!
Around 400 families came to our end of year food delivery in Concepción Pinula! This activity was amazingly led by our brilliant and energetic Celeste Aída with the support of her husband Fernando, Carmen, Isabel, Don Mayron, Victor, little Fermín, as part of the on-site community team. She partnered with Grupo Hermo, with Claudia and Karin, who donated hundreds of toys to the children as part of the Christmas celebrations! Moreover, we purchased directly from the smallholder farmers who brought, from the fields into the Christmas activity, hundreds of pineapples, broccoli, cabbage, and Peter donated avocados! We are also pursuing our oral hygene campaing with more toothbrushes and toothpaste, along with express workshops. With Christmas carols and lovely music, this was one big celebration, in which we keep on providing education and employment through creative and fun ways to interact with healthy eating! (PS: We also got together with Melanie Duflo who donated in the 2020 Christmas images for children to draw and paint).
The second edition of the Salazon is back! SAL celebrated its anniversary by inviting more than twenty chefs to cook, one chef per hour, during a two-day festival, their version of Sal's speciality. With three floors in 14 grados to host all of the food-eager foodies, a percentage of the two-day sales were destined for Wa'ik projects. In total, we surpassed last year's fundraising amount, and hit a whopping Q8,870 (from which Q2,000 were made by an individual donor)! Thank you so much for believing, supporting and growing together for impact! We would like to thank the founder of Sal, Peter, for his utmost support, with Ana and Nicole. We also want to thank each participating chef: Juan Luis, Juan, Camila, Jorge, Kai, Mafer, Nils & Marta, Sergio, Pablo D, Chino, Pablo L, Willy, Debbie, Mario, Daniel, Nicolás, Néstor, Fer, Diego, for bringing your marvelous spirit in supporting with the most amazing energy and delicious creations, and representing your restaurants with your teams! ¡Gracias tanto! What we raised during this time was destined for the Christmas delivery! Amazing how everything connects!
Climate change and its adverse effects have hit Guatemala hard. This year, the rainy season extended itself for more months, and the intensity of rain was hard. Poor national infrastructure and management on roads and territories, led to roads collapsing into sinkholes, cracks, closure, mudslides and flooding occurring throughout Guatemala. This was a catastrophe. In October, we had planned a visit to Concepcion Pinula for the Universal Plate campaign and flagship event joining World Food Day and Guatemala's National Children's Day. We also had planned a field trip to the Zoo with a lovely partnership with a restaurant. This had to be scaled down, since we were unable to reach the village due to road closure and mudslides. However, Celeste Aída organized a smaller version of the Universal Plate with fruit salads with Wa'ik edible garden always in the municipality of San José Pinula.
- Coban food delivery with Jody
Our friend, a brilliant journalist, Jody, organized a food run for displaced communities now living in Coban. We supported her to bring pineapples, carrots and potatoes to provide nutritious food security in these uncertain times, especially provided to women and elderly women for their families.
- New York Climate Week, UNGA, Vatican meeting, World Food Forum (FAO Rome):
We were partners in the Holistic Climate Action Summit organized by the Tzu Chi Foundation in New York, on occasion of New York Climate Week and UNGA (United Nations General Assembly) in september. This was a much anticipated summit, where the members of the Faith and Food Coalition finally got together, after delivering so much for the UN Food Systems Summit last year, and continued alliance this year. We are grateful to our friends Steve, Andrew, Miriam, Gopal and Kelly for bringing faith and food so far ahead and gaining more ground!
Our founder Bibi la Luz moderated three sessions, bringing her analysis, perspective, and learning from the work done here in Concepción Pinula and Guatemala:
- Faith-Based Solutions to Create Climate Resilient Food Systems;
- Responding to the Food Crisis: Future-Proofing Local Food Systems to be Resilient;
- Marching Towards COP27: Building MENA Climate Resilience by Engaging Women of Faith in Food Systems Transformation.
We also participated in a food/climate art project within Tzu Chi HQ.
Also in New York We also participated in the Sustainable Development Impact Meetings of the World Economic Forum, especially related to food innovation. (Oh, and before that in Geneva for the Shapers Summit, reporting back on the food systems session during the summit, thank you so much Food Systems Innovation team at the World Economic Forum, and to the wonderful Shaper Community that has brought many opportunities for Bibi, gracias Ana te extrañamos!!).
We then went to Italy to participate in the a Mini-Summit, during the Faith and Philanthropy Summit organized by the Galileo Foundation, World Congress of Muslim Philanthropists, and Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy Muslim Philanthropy Initiative. We united with the world's leading faith-based philanthropist to seek his Holiness the Pope mission to tackle the world's greatest issues. We were part of the Faith and Food delegation.
Finally, we participated in the World Food Forum in Rome, at the FAO HQ. This was a wonderful opportunity to collaborate, meet and deliver action plans with many colleagues in the food space around the world (Adonay and Janina). Moreover, we were front seat while the Social Gastronomy Movement Universal Plate video aired (and we were included in the video, and fantastic to see so many wonderful friends, like Nicky, Maya, Rafa, Charles, and more of the SGM team). By the way, this year Bibi finally met in person Nicky from SGM and Cherrie Atilano from AGREA, which we both were recipients of the Food Solidarity Fund in 2020 (and also Shapers)!
Oh, and also Wa'ik was well represented in COP27 in Egypt, with the Faith and Food Coalition, with the travelling Wa'ik towel! (Thank you Steve and Andrew!).
- 50 Best in Merida (Peter y Debbie)
Remember the 50 Next list of the World's 50 Best restaurants where both our Wa'ik board members Bibi la Luz and Debora Fadul have been included in the inaugural 2021 class and 2022 class? Well, we got invited to the World's 50 Best Restaurants in Latin America, and Peter Meng, our very active board member, chef and food engineer, went in representation to the award ceremony in Mérida, México. We were immensely happy to see our friends from Guatemala and Central America being in the 51-100 list, such as Diego (Flor de Lis), Pablo (Mercado 24), Pablo (Sikwa, CR), and on the 1-50 Best List, with our very own Wa'ik VicePresident, Debora Fadul with her team at Diacá and winning the Flor de Caña Sustainable Restaurant Award, and our dear friend Sergio Diaz with his team at Sublime, winning the Best Restaurant in Guatemala. We were incredibly happy to see our friends Rafa Rincón win the Icon Award (WOW!) and David Hertz to be co-panelists in 50 Best Talks. We are eternally grateful for each and every one of you for your continued support in Wa'ik and our causes throughout the years. Thank you, ¡gracias tanto!
Building on the great success we've had, we still want to keep scaling. With more partnerships, funding, to have an established core management team to keep delivering so many projects, ideas, services and products to be self-sustainable in reaching more people to reduce malnutrition through creative and inclusive education, economics, transformative agroforestry, consumption and technology, merging food, climate and human rights. Support us, partner with us for the long-term, and keep transforming lives all together!
I want to specially thank Celeste Aída and Fernando for being the best Wa'ik parents ever, and thanks to them we carried on with Wa'ik. Thank you reading, supported in every way, for bringing that push Wa'ik continues. Gracias.
