Medico

“Community Amaranth for a Better Future”

CECYTE students outside their boarding house
The project will produce health and economic outcomes in three regions (six communities) of Oaxaca, where alarge percentage of children under 5 suffer from malnourishment. The youth and families of these communities will learn the important cultural and nutritional benefits of consuming and growingamaranth. The point of entry will be hub community shelters, which house up to 200 low-income students from surrounding communities who desire secondary education. In Oaxaca, the education on offer inmany communities only goes up to primary level. Fortunately, CECYTE offers youth an opportunity to continue their education, by offering secondary schools with boarding facilities located in rural areasin 57 school districts.
The CECYTE infrastructure includes an agricultural food production component in order to save the students money and teach them life skills. Owed to its high nutritionalcontent, CECYTE has chosen to work with amaranth and partner with Puente a la Salud Comunitaria, a community development organization that has managed amaranth production and nutrition projects in ruralcommunities since 2003. Puente will offer technical assistance and workshops to secondary school teachers and students on how to cultivate amaranth, how to include it in the local diet and how toprocess it for sale. The project will thus have both nutritional and economic benefits. The participants will report on amaranth grown, consumed and sold during the year. Another key indicator ofsuccess will be the knowledge and skills acquired by the teachers, who will be key in sharing the knowledge with present and future generations of the boarding houses. Puente a la Salud Comunitaria,CECYTE and the Rotary Club will promote the program within the 57 districts of the CECYTE infrastructure.
Young women prepare an amaranth vegetable garden
The first stage of the project consists of a...