What can we do to help? How can we direct funds to help provide food to these hard hit areas?

One organization who is assisting those needing food is Mayan Families. www.mayanfamilies.org. The organization's home page has a post specifically about the food shortage and ways to help.

Just keep in mind that Mayan Families is NOT providing food for those who are in the dry corridor. Mayan Families provides food for those families in Panajachel.

On th Forum section of this web site, there is a thread, under General Discussion, entitled: Topic: Guatemala in the News - please post ways to help
That lists organizations helping folks suffering from the drought.

With all due respect, you're "torn on ethanol"??!! People are starving!!

I am torn for the following reasons. I work in a very grain based business that, for our profitability, would love to see ethanol mandates and subsidies ended. So this is something I follow closely.

I am far from convinced that anyone can make the case that ethanol production is resulting in starvation. Or moreso, that because of ethanol there is not enough corn to feed the people. As an example, there are people who go hungry every day in the US even though there is plenty of food.

People in the cities of Guatemala still have tortillas. The issue is not that there is not enough grain. The issue is that the people who survive off their own crops, sustinence living, don’t have money to buy any and their crops failed.

On the other side of the equation is our dependence on fossil fuels and the dangers that poses politically and environmentally. Ethanol is a first step in solving that – albeit a poor one. It is true that there are far better things than corn to use for ethanol type products. Look at how Brasil is energy independent with no oil and a rapidly expanding economy. They do it with sugar. But in the US, we grow corn and corn is where the AG lobbies operate.

Of course, if I had the choice to say we lower the ethanol % in our gas by just enough to feed these folks in Jalapa, I would do it in a second. But I’m far convinced anything we did with ethanol would help this type of situation. Much of the issue in getting them help is politics, infrastructure, and funding (probably in that order) – no a total lack of supply.
Paz,

Kevin
Guatadopt.com

Okay, Kevin; sorry, I see your point. I just got a little agitated after reading the article and took it out on you. The comment that really got me was about educating the population about "family planning." That usually includes abortion. I don't understand why some people would prefer dead babies to adopted babies. And I know that is not your fault; sorry!

Toni,

Family planning can mean access to birth control and being taught how to effectively use the birth control. There are a lot of countries that have a much lower incidence of abortion than the US because they use birth control effectively. I think Holland and Germany are a couple of those countries and they don't have nearly such strong, how shall I say, taboos against teenage and premarital sex as the US does. They use birth control correctly and consistently.

I do find it odd there are people who think 5000 adoptions a year is a lot, when statisticians have estimated that approximately 65,000 abortion are performed each year in Guatemala.

Kindest Regards, Cheryl

Please note that eating corn tortillas does NOT have enough nutrients for growing children, it is also NOT the only food in their diet. The crisis is affecting very young children more than the adults in the same communities. "El Corredor Seco", The Dry Hallway, is in area that borders the Pacific.

The crisis far emcompasses a solely economic need, but a socio one as well, which have a unique and
hidden obstacles that individuals from poverty face.

Strategies need to be in place to help improve services for those in need, raise retention rates for new hires from poverty, and increase understanding of the differences in economic cultures and how those differences affect opportunities for success.

Marie, you are absolutely correct. But corn, being the staple that it is, has big relevance.

But to my other point, here is something that just got sent to me in an e-newsletter on sustainability:
"40 percent of global food production is never consumed
It's estimated that 40 percent of global food production is never consumed. In the U.S., waste is pervasive throughout the entire supply chain. Recent USDA studies suggest that as much as 25 percent of food produced never reaches a plate. In developing countries a majority of the food waste never makes it to market, which leads to chronic hunger issues. No one argues that all of this wasted food represents a wasteful use of resources – the fertilizers, processing and energy needed to produce, transport and store it. While most people assume food is harmless to the environment because it biodegrades, the reality is that when food decomposes in a landfill it releases methane, a greenhouse gas that is 20 times more damaging to the environment than carbon dioxide.It costs the U.S. alone one billion dollars annually to dispose of all its food waste."

Imagine that, more food wasted than consumed while people starve...sickening!

Kevin
Guatadopt.com

Thanks Kevin...but with that said I am discussing the current situation and plea of the doctors at the Children's Hospital in Jalapa. This is what the doctors have witnessed happening repeatedly. Several children have been brought in with different levels of malnutrition. The staff's concern is that after two weeks of the child being treated in the hospital and then released to the care of the family, along with supplies of baby formula and vitamins, the child winds up in the hospital again because the procedure to supply nutrients to the child was not followed..but shared with older children who are not malnurished. That is my point. Services and home visits need to be in place for families who cannot follow the procedure for home care as dictated by the medical staff at the hospital. It is also to note that no adult has been brought in exhibiting the severe stages of malnutrition.

That is why I stated that it is also a socio problem even with all the corn or wasted food in other parts of the world that was discussed that is not going to solve the problem. Guatemala still suffers from post-Colonialism and we see evidence of that today, many of which were caused by US policies, coupled with the reality that communities living in poverty face.

Cheryl, yes I just meant that "family planning" includes abortion. I didn't know the statistic you gave, but that is what I'm talking about. 65,000 children could be alive with families who love them. Instead, the powers that be think 5000 adoptions is too many. If there is one unwanted child who needs a home, there are not enough adoptions.

Thanks for the info, Cheryl.

Toni,

You might be interested in looking at the website that I got these statistics from. It is:
http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/journals/3213606.html

To summarize:
405,017 births in 2003
32% were unintended pregnancies
43% use of contraceptives
65,000 abortions performed in 2003

And of the 43 percent that used contraceptives, how many of them used it consistently and correctly?

Best, Cheryl

Just a gentle reminder: this thread is about the drought and the generational poverty that Guate faces.