Healthy Kids, Healthy Forests: native rainforest food for school lunches improves child health while motivating reforestation
This entry has been selected as a finalist in the
Improved Nutrition: Solutions through Innovation competition.
Healthy Kids, Healthy Forests is an innovative health and conservation program which incorporates a nutritious, delicious, native rainforest food into school lunch programs to foster economic prosperity, improve child health, ensure food security, restore rainforests, promote ecological integrity and mitigate climate change in Central America, Mexico and the Caribbean.
About You
Section 1: About You
First Name
Erika
Last Name
Vohman
Organization
The Equilibrium Fund
Country
Nicaragua
Section 2: About Your Organization
Organization Name
The Equilibrium Fund
Organization Website
Organization Phone
9702754065
Organization Address
Is your organization a
Non‐profit/NGO/citizen sector organization
Organization Country
Your idea
Name Your Project
Healthy Kids, Healthy Forests: native rainforest food for school lunches improves child health while motivating reforestation
Country your work focuses on
Describe Your Idea
Healthy Kids, Healthy Forests is an innovative health and conservation program which incorporates a nutritious, delicious, native rainforest food into school lunch programs to foster economic prosperity, improve child health, ensure food security, restore rainforests, promote ecological integrity and mitigate climate change in Central America, Mexico and the Caribbean.
Website URL
Innovation
What makes your idea unique?
Healthy Kids, Healthy Forests is a new paradigm of rural development which focuses on local and traditional food, skills, resources, and knowledge. We are the only organization in the world working to rescue the lost indigenous knowledge of the Maya Nut for food. This program is innovative because it adds value to a formerly worthless rainforest resource, also because it provides job, educational and income opportunities for women, a highly disenfranchised sector in Latin America. The school lunch model is also innovative and can provide a replicable model for other organizations hoping to mainstream traditional and perennial foods (which tend to be less popular but more nutritious and often more ecologically beneficial than "modern" annual food crops)
Do you have a patent for this idea?
Impact
This Entry is about (Issues)
What impact have you had?
We have impacted more than 80,000 people from 763 villages throughout Mesoamerica, Mexico and Cuba. We have inspired communities and individuals to plant 500,000 new Maya Nut trees for food. We have provided 432 rural and indigenous women with skills and knowledge to feed their families and earn income using a free and abundant native forest resource. We have taught more than 30,000 children about a food which was critical to the survival of their ancestors during war, drought, and hurricanes, and which will likely be critical for the survival of future generations as well. We have succeeded in renewing interest in the Maya Nut at the governmental level in all the countries where we work.
Problem
Export economies and unsustainable aid programs have diminished Mesoamerica's ability to feed itself and have devastated forests throughout the region. Forests have been converted to sugar, coffee, rubber, bananas, oil palm and other environmentally destructive and low-nutritive value crops.
Malnutrition rates in Mesoamerica are unacceptably high because of these paradigms, which value cash more than human wellbeing.
Forest loss has resulted in loss of biodiversity and valuable ecosystem services, including soils and water and CO2 sequestration.
Actions
Healthy Kids, Healthy Forests creates a new paradigm of rainforest-based food production by creating local markets (rural schoolchildren) for a native, nutritious rainforest food, the Maya Nut (Brosimum alicastrum.
This project has positive and lasting impacts on child health, rural economies, rainforest conservation, reforestation, food security and environmental health.
Rural women produce the Maya Nut products for the school lunches. This ensures a robust local market for their products.
Participating schools agree to plant at least 4000 Maya Nut trees in "food forests" in exchange for participating in the program. These forests are "magnets" for birds and wildlife, 85% of species consume Maya Nut seeds, seedlings, leaves and buds. Maya Nut is highly drought resistant, producing abundant quantities of nutritious, delicious seed in years when corn and other crops fail.
Results
Since 2007 Healthy Kids, Healthy Forests has infused more than $60,000 into rural economies and has resulted in the establishment of more than 200,000 Maya Nut trees in "food forests", with a production potential of more than ten million pounds of food per year, even in drought years. More than 10,000 children have eaten Maya Nut as part of their school lunches in Guatemala, Mexico, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Honduras. Maya Nut is now a protected species in the areas where we work and more than 15 rural women's cooperatives have formed to produce and market Maya Nut products, providing vital income for women.
What will it take for your project to be successful over the next three years? Please address each year separately, if possible.
2010- We need consensus among the 3 critical ministries in the countries where we work to achieve our goals. We need the ministries of Health, Education and Forestry/Agriculture to work together to implement Healthy Kids, Healthy Forests in each of the countries where we work.
Once we have consensus (and have institutionalized Healthy Kids, Healthy Forests) we need financing for 2011 and 2012 to purchase the Maya Nut lunches for the children. This is the incentive (psychological and financial) which motivates the community reforestation by changing rural people's attitudes toward their forests because they realize these forests can provide food. Once the forests are established, the program can sustain itself in those communities, and Healthy Kids, Healthy Forests can expand to new sites.
What would prevent your project from being a success?
Lack of consensus and partnering among the relevant institutions. Lack of financing.
How many people will your project serve annually?
More than 10,000
What is the average monthly household income in your target community, in US Dollars?
Less than $50
Does your project seek to have an impact on public policy?
Yes
Sustainability
What stage is your project in?
Operating for 1‐5 years
In what country?
Is your initiative connected to an established organization?
Yes
If yes, provide organization name.
The Equilibrium Fund
How long has this organization been operating?
More than 5 years
Does your organization have a Board of Directors or an Advisory Board?
Yes
Does your organization have any non-monetary partnerships with NGOs?
Yes
Does your organization have any non-monetary partnerships with businesses?
Yes
Does your organization have any non-monetary partnerships with government?
Yes
Please tell us more about how these partnerships are critical to the success of your innovation.
Healthy Kids, Healthy Forests model is for local partners to work together to implement the program as a collaborative entity (e.g. Healthy Kids, Healthy Forests Foundation, Guatemala). HKHF must be implemented in partnership with local government and/or indigenous and community organizations in order to ensure long term sustainability and sovereignty. More partners = more stakeholders = more beneficiaries and more capacity-building for future program implementation, adaptation and expansion.
What are the three most important actions needed to grow your initiative or organization?
Consensus and trust-building among government
Continue to finance pilot programs in each country to further continue to Mainstream Maya Nut consumption in the areas where we work
Improve survival rates of Maya Nut seedlings in reforestation programs
The Story
What was the defining moment that led you to this innovation?
Seeing the women Maya Nut producers battle with the US companies who wanted to purchase their Maya Nut for export, who were all labeled as fair trade companies, but who were obviously not adhering to the established fair trade principles. It quickly became obvious that the Maya Nut was at risk of becoming yet another export crop, destined to create more poverty and disenfranchisement of the producers...So we, with some of the Maya Nut producers decided to target the local children in the form of the school lunch programs, and have that be the market. School lunch market has all the qualities we were seeking; its a local market, so no complicated permits, licenses or shipping requirement, the price can be fairly negotiated because its locally negotiated, the target is in need of our product (malnourished children), and the women were excited to be able to see the final use of their products.
Tell us about the social innovator behind this idea.
Erika Vohman is an agronomist with 16 years of experience in Latin America and 8 years working to rescue lost indigenous knowledge of the Maya Nut in Central America, Mexico and the Caribbean. So far her NGO, The Equilibrium Fund, has impacted more than 800 communities in Mexico, Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras, trained 75 independent promoters who can continue this work in new communities, and facilitated the formation of 15 independent women's producer groups who now produce, process and sell Maya Nut for food and income.
How did you first hear about Changemakers?
Through another organization or company
If through another, please provide the name of the organization or company
Equator Initiative
 | 120 weeks agoNaveen Shakir said: On January 18, 2010 the judges reviewed the entries for the Changemakers Improved Nutrition: Solutions through Innovation competition ... about this Competition Entry. - read more > |
| 120 weeks agoDavid Stoker said: what efforts have you made to fight the corruption of the school boards? Can the students themselves be involved? about this Competition Entry. - read more > |
| 121 weeks agoHealthy Kids, Healthy Forests: native rainforest food for school lunches improves child health while motivating reforestation has been chosen as a finalist in Improved Nutrition: Solutions through Innovation. |
| 124 weeks agoErika Vohman said: Dear Naveen, I found this comment now in a better format to respond. Thank you for your kind words about our program. you can learn ... about this Competition Entry. - read more > |
| 124 weeks agoNaveen Shakir said: Great entry! We would really like to hear more about the nutritional value of the Maya nut and how you are integrating the nut into ... about this Competition Entry. - read more > |
| 131 weeks agoErika Vohman updated this Competition Entry. |
| 132 weeks agoErika Vohman submitted this idea. |
