María Josefina: “We eat much better, to the point that my youngest son has been named model child for his good nutritional status.”
María Josefina Roque is a member of the Mayan Chortí ethnic group, which has not been treated well by history and by nature. Faced with the social ecosystem of deep patriarchy, Josefina has become a pioneer in her neighbourhood and a universal heroine.
She has overcome the barriers of prevailing machismo and illiteracy that the members of her community, La Ceiba Talquezal in the Guatemalan department of Chiquimula, have always faced.
Single mother of four children after her husband abandoned them, Josefina has worked her way to become secretary of the seed bank of her region, a project implemented by Action Against Hunger that seeks to expand the diversity of products consumed by families and to stabilize prices.
Through the accumulation and distribution of the grain, the cost of these products is avoided during the months of scarcity. “It has been a great help for us,” Josefina says. “Now I have a little garden where I put chard, beans and medicinal plants. Today we eat much better, to the point that my youngest son has been named model child for his good nutritional status,” she adds proudly.
“What I want most is a better future for my children.”