Yogurt con Amor, Nutrition for Kids w/disABILITY

Even the pandemic cannot mask the appeal and flavor of Yogurt con Amor, an artisan yogurt and cheese factory in Matagalpa.  This nutritional product has become a lifeline for mothers who are receiving cancer treatment; for children with problems swallowing; for customers whose doctors recommend probiotics for digestion and other health issues. The yogurt is 100% natural, with no preservatives, the cheeses are derived from the same yogurt. Making and selling yogurt is a service to the community, now performed by masked women, post lockdown.

So, who are these masked women who are keeping social distancing, yet reaching out to their community with products made with love?  They are mothers who have children with disabilities, they are women who have a family member with a disability and they are women with disabilities themselves.

The vendors are usually students working their way through university.  Selena came to Matagalpa to continue her studies from a local community with fewer educational opportunities. Her family farm is far from Matagalpa, two buses, plus a ride on horseback. She is familiar with milk products since she grew up on the farm making cheese but had never tried yogurt, which uses a fermenting process.  Tasting this fermented milk, she was immediately ready to work for the project. Each day she joins the other vendors to bring yogurt to those who need it for health reasons and to those who simply want to enjoy the delicious product.  She was working only 3 months when Familias Especiales (FE) went on lockdown, she lives with the mother of a girl with disabilities. Offering to rent a room in their home helped her to work and study. During this time she has also learned to understand some of the needs of children with disabilities.  Jobs at Yogurt con Amor benefits students trying to earn an education. 

The new pandemic policy is to use masks and face shields when selling and delivering in public. These masked women were dreaming up new products during the lockdown, such as carrot and pineapple yogurt-flan and even a yogurt cake. They are continually searching for recipes that use yogurt as an alternative to heavy cream for making healthier desserts.

As Yogurt con Amor, re-opened the public accepted their service with open hands and hungry stomachs.  People know that the funds from the yogurt project keep the children’s lunch program open and promote nutrition for families of children with a disability in Matagalpa neighborhoods.

The now masked women of Yogurt with Love, are grateful for your support, allowing them to serve others and improve their livelihood through employment.

Usually workers for Yogurt con Amor (Yogurt with Love) are moving around everywhere in all neighborhoods of Matagalpa promoting nutrition and the health benefits of yogurt plus giving mothers yogurt to help with their recuperating from cancer treatments.  But this is not usual time, “ I just couldn’t think of our promotors going into neighborhoods in and out of houses with this virus spreading “ said the administrator. “We just need to protect our vulnerable population and not spread this disease.”

 As of March 25 we decided to go on lock down to protect our health and those around us a very hard decision when people need nutrition now more than ever.  

The decision was made by the foundation to close as Nicaragua started having cases of Covid19.  FE works with people with disabilities who are more vulnerable to this virus so we could not envision doing anything else. At this time in May the government of Nicaragua has mostly ignored the pandemic and have not order any social distancing or self-protection for their citizens. The country leads in the percentage of deaths : cases ratio in Central America.  This is a sad reality that we have to live with and come through alive. The projected return is now scheduled for June 14 with hopes that we can feel secure to bring nutrition to children again.  Since there is no testing in our country we don’t want to just start up again and infect one another.  It is very hard without any government support.  Everything is an unknown for us but we continue to follow from social media from central American countries and the world Health organization.  That is all we have. 

We had to work quickly with yogurt to get our promoters off the street and notify people to stop any large orders coming in at this time.  There were questions about where we get our milk and also some of our bigger out of the city accounts where supposedly there were cases during this time of closure.  We also set up WhatsApp groups to keep in touch with those families who have access to social media. The small businesses in FE worked together on the closures to ensure that we did not lose products and sharing resources like freezer space and storage.   

As the main goal of Yogurt con Amor is nutrition to the poor, staff were very active in getting out two different times more than 200 packages of basic grains to people we work with in Matagalpa.

We used the delivery of these food packages to educate as we went in trucks with our workers in protective gear not getting out of the trucks but letting each individual enter into the double cabin and receive a small talk about the virus and being able to talk a bit about their experience so far.  We are trying to motivate people to stay in their homes to avoid the virus. This is not our usual style of direct work with the families but because public transportation is so crowded and the food shortage is so great we decided to do it in this manner to help our families when they are getting no help from the government or other social agencies.  We posted a you tube link of an inspirational video that we did about corona virus for our organization, on our you tube channel. We want to be a program to share health benefits not a vehicle for spreading disease unknowingly

Families Especial wants to thank everyone for their support con Amor for Yogurt and to say directly we are not going away we would prefer to be making and eating yogurt.  We are already working on plans on how we will reopen and get yogurt out in a healthy safe way.

We are aware that all over the world countries are at different stages in this virus, this dangerous unknown threat and we continue to keep everyone in the world in our prayers. A small prayer for children:  Dear God be good to me the sea is so wide and my boat is so small.

Links:

• video on our response to covid 19