Location: Departament of Beni (BOLIVIA)
Local partner: Social Ministry Cáritas Beni
Justification: Food insecurity (geographic and metereological difficulties for sustainable production of food, scarce diversity of agricultural production that leads to poor diet and unstable and insufficient economic income to buy food) with the result of precarious health state due to bad environmental health conditions and lack of sanitary and hygiene education.
Objectives:
- Improve food security
- Improve conditions of family health, particularly maternal-infant health
Activities:
- Improve productivity of rice, sugar cane production and develop family kitchen garden
- Elaboration of manufactured and commercialized products
- Technical agricultural capacitation in production and commercialization and creation of credit fonds for farmers.
- Develop programm for maternal and infant health and training of 6 health promoters for community health
Beneficiary population: 462 persons (242 women and 220 men, among them 113 children under 5)
Duration of project: 36 months (March 2005 to March 2008),
Budget and financing: 308.931,28 € (participate Gobierno de Navarra, Ayuntamiento de Pamplona y CAN)
Achievement:
In spite of the difficulties, such as the great drought and forest fires that devastated the Amazon early 2006, or the terrible floods from January 2007, the cooperation project has been successful:
- Improvement of family agricultural production:
- Purchase of adequate seeds for planting of kitchen gardens, sugar cane and rice and obtain several harvests.
- Construction of a shed for the installation and use of rice peeling and storage of 100 tonnes of grain.
- Purchase of agricultural maschinery (small tools, rice peeling, mills, 4-ton truck...)
- Formation of three micro-production companies in the beneficiary communities.
- Agriculture training for men and women with equal conditions.
- Creation of credit fond with evaluation committee and follow-up of granted credits. Approx. 50 of the 77 families have made use of this resource.
- Progressive improvement of maternal-infantil health:
- Pediatric controls of more than 124 children under 5: weight control and height, vaccination, supply of parasite medication, 42 children with malnutrition receive vitamin supplements and 28 have overcome malnutrition.
- 7 women with 2 to 8 month pregnancy carry out gynecological-obstetrician control and receive their dosis of ferrous sulfate and vitamins.
- Training of 6 health promoters, 2 for each beneficiary community offer first aid, administrate medicine and administrate medical community kits
- Continuous supply of medical community kits
