Food Security Guatemala Project #37923

COVID Response Program for Santiago

by Mayanza, Inc.

Project Report | Dec 27, 2020
Reflections and Beginnings

By Jami Smith | Executive Director

Reflections on 2020 for Mayanza

What a year it has been! As we make plans for our projects that will come in 2021, its important to evaluate and reflect upon what we have accompished despite and because of the pandemic in 2020.

We started off 2020 busy with preparations for our trip to Santiago. Some highlights from our February trip include:

Providing dental screening, fluoride varnish, anemia screening and personal hygiene supplies for almost 550 children
Launching our first Family Health Fair at the 4 schools we serve and reaching over 360 people with health education and supplies
Bringing our largest, interprofessional team of health care providers, students and volunteers
Graduating our first class of women from our Diabetes Prevention Program and enrolling our next class

Shortly after this trip, word of COVID was spreading across the globe. In an effort to control the virus, there were extensive lockdown measure in Santiago and we began to its effects on the families and school children of Santiago. We shifted our efforts and responded in the following ways:

Partnership with the Mother Artisans group of Puerta Abierta to manufacture and distribute 1500 cloth masks in April. These were distributed by our health educator to community members most in need with handwashing education and 600 bars of soap.
Collaboration with Olla Comunitaria, a volunteer led organization of women from Santiago who provided hot meals and bags of healthy food to families. Over 500 families benefited from this initiative.
After a social worker identified the families most at need, we provided bi-weekly bags of healthy food including protein and fruits and vegetable to 30 families for 4 months.
In a joint effort with the Sparks Foundation, 186 families were gifted with a large bag of nutritious food
Partnership with Respira, a Guatemalan organization that created high flow nasal cannulas to donate the machines to two local health centers, Hospitalito Atitlan and Centro de Salud.

After the initial crisis, it became clear that this pandemic would not soon resolve. Again, we shifted our response to provide a more sustainable solution to the current problems. Some of the highlights include:

Partnership with Imap to provide education and supplies to create sustainable family gardens.
Programs in Chacaya and Tzanchaj that provided women with education, skills, and supplies to grow family gardens and raise chickens which will provide much needed protein and vegetables to their families. We plan to continue these projects that will benefit the individual families and community long after the pandemic has passed.
We piloted our first online Auction of handmade Guatemalan good in December with an overwhelming response. We plan to continue this in 2021.

And will all of this, we are not done yet. We are not yet certain when we will return to Santiago, however upcoming projects for 2021 include:

Continuing our Diabetes Prevention program focusing on healthy food choices, exercise sessions, goal setting and stress management.
Based on the data from our anemia program, we will be launching a targeted program to the families of the children who are most at need with education, health supplies and food.
Continuing our home garden and chickens programs.

To maintain our ability to provide help where it is needed most, we need your help. There are a number of ways that you can support Mayanza during this time.

1. DONATION: As always, 100% of our donations go directly toward our programs in Guatemala. We have zero adminstrative fees for the work that we do. Did you know that the CARES Act provides additional tax relief for donors. If you take the standard deduction on your 2020 tax return, you may still claim an “above the line” deduction of up to $300 for cash donations to charitable organizations, like Mayanza, on gifts made by December 31.

2. MAYANZA MERCH: We have launched a website with merchandise that supports our programs and helps to create awareness of our organization.

3. JOIN US: We will be hosting a series of webinars over the next few months showcasing and highlighting the artisans from around Lake Atitlan. Join us for tortilla making, chocolate tasting and to appreciate how textiles are handmade just to mention a few. Our first session is on Saturday, January 23rd at 6:30pm ET where we will learn to make handmade tortillas and pico de gallo with the teachers from la Puerta Abierta, one of the schools we partner with. It is sure to be a lot of fun! You can purchase tickets here.

4. Finally, you can also support us with every purchase that you make from Amazon Smile.

Thank you for your support during this year that has challenged each of us in so many ways. With your support, we hope plan to move into 2021 prepared to make a difference in the lives of the children and families of Santiago!

JOIN US!

Links:

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Nov 24, 2020
Update from Mayanza

By Jami Smith | Executive Director

Planning the garden

Hello from Mayanza!

In the US, we celebrate Thanksgiving this week. It is a time to show our gratitude and celebrate our families with good food to nourish our bodies and our souls. We wanted to let you know how much we appreciate YOU and your support of Mayanza. Your support allows us to provide programming that directly affects the people of Santiago Atitlan. Through monthly and individual donations we have been able to continue programs and plan for new initiatives. Here a a few highlights of the past few months:

COVID Food Insecurity: Mayanza continue to partner with a grassroots community organization, Olla Comunitaria, who provided hot meals and bags of healthy food to people in need. Foods like eggs, corn, beans, oil, oatmeal, and fresh vegetables were given to families with children who have not had work since the pandemic began.

Community Gardens and Chickens Program: Mayanza supports two initiatives in the neighborhoods of Chacaya and Tzanchaj to enable women to learn new skills to become more self-sufficient, increase access to healthy food and provide a source of income. Our team met with the women to determine if a home garden or a community plot would best serve their needs. Then, they were given education around maintaining a garden and chickens. Already radishes are ready to harvest and this is just the beginning. The excess food created can be traded or sold. We know that empowering women benefits the whole community!

Coming Soon- Partnering with Artisans to raise awareness and funds: We are hosting a Guatemalan Handmade Goods Auction at the beginning of December, just in time for holiday gift shopping and in the new year, a webinar series focused on aspects of life in Guatemala. Please look for more information about these initiatives that will be coming soon!

We are grateful for you - our supporters and hope that you will continue our support as we move into 2021!

Thank you!

The Mayanza Team

Growing nutritious crops

Harvesting the fruits of labor!

Chickens will provide much needed protein.

Just a sample of what is to come with the harvest.

Links:

Check out our website for more information.

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Sep 15, 2020
Responding to Needs During COVID

By Jami Smith | Chief Executive Officer and Founder

I hope that you and your family are well! I am frequently asked by supporters of Mayanza, "what's happening in Santiago?" and so I wanted to send you some updates and let you know what is happening in the community.

In the next week, the airports will be opening and the restrictions are gradually loosening throughout the country based upon the number of cases reported in each department. As you can imagine, the rate of testing is low as there is limited access to testing and people fear the stigma that accompanies a diagnosis. Although restrictions are beginning to lift, many of the artisans and other people who work within the tourist industry continue to struggle to feed their families.

We have responded to these needs in a number of ways. We have formed some new partnerships with other organizations and friends in Sanitago. I am excited to share how your generous donations have helped us respond to the crisis that has evolved from the COVID restrictions in Guatemala since March!

1. COVID Prevention Program: Mayanza partnered with the Artesanos de Puerta Abierta, a group of artisan mothers from a school that we collaborate with, Puerta Abierta, to design, create and distribute 1500 environmentally friendly reusable face masks. We also purchased 680 bars of hand soap and our health educator, Lola distributed them in the communities of Tzanchaj, Chacaya and Santiago along with education about mask use and hand washing. In addition, over $2,000 was sent to purchase masks, gloves, disinfectant and other personal protective equipment for frontline responders in Santiago. For the school community of the David LaMotte School in Tzanchaj, each family was given a month's worth of hand and body soap that is so important to prevent the spread of COVID and other infectious diseases in Santiago.

2. COVID Food Insecurity Response: We partnered with a grassroots organization called Olla Comunitaria who have provided 400 bags of food that can feed a family for a month and 730 individual meals to members of the community in need. Since May, we have worked with 30 vulnerable women and their families in the community of Tzanchaj by providing bi-weekly supplies of nutritious food, hygiene supplies and health education. Additionally, we partnered with an organization in San Lucas Tolimon called iMAP to plant a garden with nutritious food for a family and monthly food for a family of 6 which benefited over 57 people, 4 organizations and 2 local businesses in the process. Finally, we partnered with the Sparks Foundation to provide a bag of food and hygiene supplies to 186 families in two of the school communitites that we support, Panul and Chu'ul.

3. COVID Treatment Program: Mayanza partnered with Respira, a Guatemalan supported company that manufactures high flow oxygen cannulas for the support of COVID related respiratory dysfunction, pneumonia and other respiratory diseases to the Centro de Salud CAIMI clinic and Hospitalito Atitlan. These are the two health centers for the community of Santiago Atitlan.

I hope that you can see the breadth of areas that Mayanza is working within Guatemala. Your generous donations are putting food on the table for so many families and we are collaborating with a number of organizations to transition our response to a community generated, more sustainable, long term solution to food insecurity in Santiago. More to come in our next update!! If you are able, please consider a donation to help us to continue our work in Guatemala. Every donation goes directly to helping to feed the families of this community.

Stay safe and warmest regards from the team at Mayanza!

Lola distributes masks, soap and education.

Women receive education, food and hygiene supplies

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