GUATEMALA CITY — For years, Guatemala has been a recipient of international aid, but the practice of handouts for the poor is now being called into question. USAID, along with Peace Corps, sees the Guatemalan government’s system of simply distributing food aid to the poor as shortsighted and flawed. The practice of solely giving out food superficially addresses the problem of poverty and makes the impoverished dependent on aid. Both USAID and Peace Corps wish to break this system of dependence.
According to the World Bank, about 75 percent of Guatemalans live below the poverty line. Fifty-eight percent of them live in extreme poverty, or in a state where they are unable to purchase basic necessities including food and shelter. The majority of the impoverished reside in rural remote areas of the country, leaving them with little access to outside resources.
Traditional aid comes in the form of food donations for the Guatemalan people, but the handouts do help the poor to farm and grow food for themselves. USAID and the Peace Corps hope to change this by taking a different approach to aid.
Their initiative is called Feed the Future. The goal is to train and teach those in rural communities, the primary recipients of aid, to be self-sustainable. Instead of the top-down system of reliance on international aid, the initiative takes a bottom-up approach. The Feed the Future program seeks to end poverty in Guatemala by educating and training adults, and by strengthening local markets and institutions. In working directly with the poor, USAID and the Peace Corps hope to create economic independence for Guatemala from the bottom up.
Specifically, the Peace Corps is addressing the problem through the Feed the Future Peace Corps Response program. The program works directly with the Ministry of Agriculture to train government officials. These officials then empower citizens through education, as the poor of Guatemala are largely uneducated with little access to the outside world. Lessons in agriculture and poultry management, as well as education about preventative health measures, are essential pieces of the program and are taught to small rural communities. Instead of foreigners coming in and handing out food to prevent malnutrition, the Feed the Future program seeks to empower the poor to help themselves.
With Feed the Future, farmers learn how to better cultivate their land so they can have a fruitful harvest not only this year but for many years to come. By teaching concepts like the importance of planting foods that are high in nutrients and maintaining healthy livestock, the program seeks to provide the poor with the tools necessary to achieve independence from food aid.
This change to end poverty in Guatemala is not a quick fix. The goal of Feed the Future, unlike that of the handout approach, is for the education occurring now to persist in the long-term and bring prosperity.
Sources: Peace Corps, World Bank, USAID
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