Fight Child Malnutrition in Rural Guatemala

Students and their moms wait patiently in the school kitchen at Nueva Providencia Primary School for Sandy Mendoza, our Organic School Garden Educator, to teach them how to cook a nutritious chicken and chard meal.

Before they begin cooking, Sandy explains each ingredient they will use and its  nutritional benefits. The ingredient list includes some household staples, like carrots and onions, and some leafy greens that few to none have used before-- chard. After explaining the cooking process and assigning each mother and daughter a cooking task, everyone  washes their hands and the produce and the cooking begins.

Mother and daughter cooking classes are very intentional. Young girls in rural Guatemala are expected to share in the responsibility of caring for their siblings and helping their mothers cook while the men and boys work in the fields. With this kind of responsibility, it is important that families eat high-nutrient meals.

Most of the families in the Nueva Providencia Community work exclusively picking and tending to coffee production. Coffee production isn’t very lucrative for the people who work at the growing and picking stages. As a result, sufficient economic resources is the biggest challenge for most families in rural Guatemala, and with it comes the public health issue of child malnutrition. Statistics from the World Food Programme claim that 50% of children in Guatemala under five suffer from chronic malnutrition, the highest percentage is among indigenous communities--  including the ones we work in.

This is the reason why it’s so important to teach healthy habits at a young age and to encourage healthy cooking.  The recipes we share with the moms and daughters are affordable and based on ingredients that can be found at the local market or in the school garden.

Workshops like this are possible only because of your GlobalGiving generosity. Thank you for helping us cultivate healthy habits and for joining our mission to create healthy students.