Dear Friend of Puente,
Recently back from maternity leave after the birth of my second son Liam in January, I know how much hard work, devotion and love it takes to bring up healthy and happy children.
In particular I understand how essential it is for a mother to know that her children are eating and growing properly. I can only imagine how heartwrenching it must be to feel unable to offer your children proper nutrition.
It is therefore truly a joy for me to witness the valuable work that Puente is doing with mothers of children at risk of malnutrition and how amaranth can help them acheive this end.
I would like to dedicate this special newsletter to the hundreds of wonderful mothers that participate in Puente's programs and their pivotal role in creating heathly families in Oaxaca, Mexico.
Sincerely,
Dhaniella Falk
Development Director
Being a Mother is a Wonderful Thing
By Silvia Angele Hernandez Lopez, Participant in Puente’s Eco-Amaranth Program
As with most mother’s, my life’s greatest challenge is to help my two children get ahead. Most mothers in my community have to work hard just to ensure that the family has enough to eat.
Every morning I wake up before dawn to send the cows to graze. I return to the house to make my cheeses, which I then distribute to the shops around the village. Later I prepare lunch for my children for when they get back from school. In the afternoon, I go to the farm to feed the other animals and to tend to the amaranth plants and other crops and in the evenings help my children with their homework.
I started to participate with Puente a la Salud Comunitaria because of the benefits that amaranth and organic farming has for the children’s health. It is very important that they eat well so that they don’t get sick and they can study. We are also learning about transforming amaranth to sell, to help increase the family income. I enjoy my activities and I hope that my children will take advantage of the efforts that I make for them.
My own mother is also a hard worker, and she taught me everything I know. I am very grateful to her for the efforts she has made for me.
As mothers, almost everything we do is for our children, and that is a wonderful thing!
Mothers Learning from Mothers to Improve Child Nutrition
Since 2009, Puente has been using the Hearth/Positive Deviance methodology aimed at mothers of young children who are at risk of malnutrition.
In almost all communities, there are children who, despite difficult economic circumstances, are healthy and well nourished. Puente works with local health promotors to identify these children and investigates what positive steps are being taken by their families to contribute to their health. The methodology is based on the premise that many solutions to community problems already exist within the community and just need to be discovered.
In Santiago Ixtalpec, a community in the Mixteca Region of Oaxaca, the younger children often accompany their mothers to the fields. Their mothers take food wrapped up in a taco for lunch. Roberta Contrera, who had been identified as a mother with exceptionally healthy children, told Puente that rather than wrapping the food up in a taco, she would take the lunch in a plastic container with a spoon. When we asked her why, she responded, “Because their hands get dirty from playing in the mud.” It could be that by doing this, she has avoided the children contracting parasites. This is a practice that we could share with Puente's nutritional support group in the community, knowing that it is not out of their means.
This methodology allows mothers to take responsibility for the nutritional rehabilitation of their children using locally accessible resources and knowledge.
