In Guatemala, 59% of its 18 million inhabitants live below the poverty line and around 20% try to survive in conditions of extreme poverty, according to data from various international and local organisations.
The social programme ‘Guatemalans for Nutrition’ has contributed to the recovery of children with acute malnutrition in the northwest of the Central American country, a project led by Hermanos Castillo and which has been planned, designed and implemented by the Spanish company ARPA Equipos móviles de Campaña.
This social initiative, which began on 31 March 2023, has facilitated the recovery of children with acute malnutrition thanks to its mobile clinics called ‘Nutrimóviles Camp’.
The first camp is located in the department (province) of Huehuetenango, in the extreme northwest of Guatemala. The project has been made possible thanks to the business project Castillo Hermanos, which allocated 15 million dollars to the programme and has been the sole funder of the project.
After 24 weeks of operation, ‘Guatemalans for Nutrition’ has managed to recover ‘75% of the children enrolled in the programme and diagnosed with acute malnutrition’.
At ARPA we feel truly motivated because the results in reducing the rates of acute malnutrition are very satisfactory. The heart of the altruistic project is the ‘Nutrimóviles’, mobile modules built by ARPA, which have been designed to care for children under the age of five who are malnourished or at risk of food shortages, as well as pregnant women in the same conditions.
Guatemaltecos por la Nutrición (Guatemalans for Nutrition) is the social programme of Castillo Hermanos that addresses the problem of malnutrition in a comprehensive and sustainable way in five communities in Huehuetenango. The Spanish company ARPA has been in charge of the creation, design and assembly of this complex health infrastructure.
La desnutrición en Guatemala Malnutrition in Guatemala is a problem with multiple causes and there are three determining factors that cause its prevalence: the biological factor, which is related to health; the economic factor, which refers to the quality of life of a family and its ability to access food; and the environmental factor, which is linked to hygiene and cleanliness habits.
In order to positively transform each of these determinants, the Guatemalans for Nutrition project has created a holistic working model that defines five lines of work:
· Primary Health Care
The actions defined for each axis function as a mechanism for transforming the determinants of malnutrition with different actions that work collaboratively with the individual, their family and the community to guarantee the sustainability of the programme's results.
A second camp is already being set up and will be located in the Plaza del Obelisco in Guatemala City for a week, from 13 to 18 February 2024. It will then travel to another strategic location in the country where it will help to alleviate the serious problems of malnutrition.
Under the slogan:
‘We invite all Guatemalans to join this important initiative and become a Guatemalan for Nutrition. A call to action has been made to the public to raise awareness of this terrible problem.’