In every region around the world, food insecurity is more prevalent for women than men. In Latin America, 248 million people face food insecurity, with millions of women struggling with malnutrition, health issues, and poverty. Despite overwhelming challenges, women across Latin America are making waves every day to fight hunger and build their resilience and power.
Women throughout Latin America faced both unpredictable disasters and long-term challenges. Families fleeing conflict were forced to flee their homes—some were displaced inside of their countries and others made dangerous journeys to neighboring countries. The war in Ukraine has caused inflation, supply chain disruptions, and skyrocketing food prices, resulting in widespread inequity. Climate shocks, including floods, landslides, and El Nino’s warming have led to disease outbreaks, billions of dollars of destruction, and even sudden deaths.
In the midst of hardship, a promising future might seem out of reach for women throughout Latin America. But Maria Magaly, Ángela, and Dora Prado face these challenges with determination and cultivate hope throughout their communities.
Maria Magaly, 18, is a nutrition counselor in La Puente, a small town in Chiquimula, a region in northeast Guatemala that’s primarily reliant on the agriculture and mining industries. Even at such a young age, she’s responsible for providing for her family. Partnering with Action Against Hunger has allowed her to take a stand and channel her inner spirit and ambition into making community health reforms.
“My life before I started training as a nutrition and health counselor with the support of Action Against Hunger was very different,” she said. As the oldest of six siblings, Maria had to assume a protective role over her family and work to provide for them all. It was hard for her to balance both high school studies and a job, but it was the only way for her to ensure her family’s wellbeing.
Today, she is grateful for her employment at Action Against Hunger, and she can now buy basic supplies that she couldn’t afford before.
“It is a great help for me, because before I started, I had no money to dress myself, my mother bought for us when she could or borrowed money,” she said. “Now I can dress myself with the contribution they give us, and I also help a little at home.”
Maria is studying hard as a nutrition counselor and is proud to see how her efforts are helping families like her own make healthier choices. Action Against Hunger’s nutrition interventions are promoting joint household decision making between men and women, advancing women’s economic autonomy, providing access to financial and technical resources, and ensuring that more men or services can help to share the role of caregiving for children and sick family members.
Maria has learned a lot in her last year of nutrition training: “Everything we do is going well and is benefiting our community, especially children under two years of age and pregnant women.”
Action Against Hunger provides direct assistance to thousands of people across Latin America. Along with food distribution, we improve access to clean water, safe sanitation, and good hygiene.
Ángela is a teacher who lives in Putumayo, Colombia. In recent years, the community has experienced an uptick of violence from several armed groups. The surrounding conflict has made it hard for families to maintain healthy lifestyles and afford food. It’s also made it harder for women and girls to feel safe and to live independently.
Many of the children Ángela teaches come to school every day without breakfast—and when they leave, they go home to nothing for dinner. Action Against Hunger interviewed people in communities where conflict is occurring and found that women experienced high stress levels and concerns about their ability to find enough food to feed their families: 63.2% of respondents reported that their families were still hungry even after meals.
Ángela is one of the only teachers who has remained in the village, since many others were forced to flee and seek safety. Still, she continues to stay and teach the 14 students who remain. Only five of the children she teaches have access to school meals, since school feeding programs typically have a limited budget. Due to some student’s late registration or outdated information, sometimes the government feeding program doesn’t cover 100% of the demand. Still, Angela will not let a single student go hungry. She stretches her minimal funds and food supplies to provide for all her students, and even buys educational materials for them. Every morning, she spends four hours preparing food for her students.
“We are in a conflict zone, and it is difficult for women to take their children to school because there are many dangers,” she said.
Life in the middle of armed conflict means people are unable to move freely and grow or buy food easily. Many mothers skip meals to save food for their children.
Action Against Hunger supported Ángela’s school with a project called Alianza Amazonia, which provided and installed filters to ensure clean drinking water. Even as Ángela faces poverty and violence every day, she is determined to continue looking out for her students with help from organizations like Action Against Hunger to support her in her everyday heroism.
In the small Peruvian village of Porta Cruz, Dora Prado works hard to support her four children. Thanks to an economic boost from Action Against Hunger’s entrepreneurship project, she is able to sell dairy products in a local market.
For years, Dora’s life was overshadowed by poverty. Her husband was forced to move to Lima due to health concerns. With no husband and little money, Dora struggled to provide for her family. Porta Cruz’s cold temperatures and dangerous frost often impacted the health of her livestock. Dora couldn’t afford to travel to other markets to buy and sell things and she didn’t have the means to send all of her children to school.
Despite the obstacles, Dora refused to give up. She was trained by Action Against Hunger for eight months and received supplies, such as buckets to collect milk. Her persistence led her to start selling a range of dairy products that she produces with livestock farming such as yogurt, cheese, and milk. Today, she’s encouraged to find new ways to continue increasing her income.
“Dora belongs to an association of enterprising mothers,” said Conny Vásquez, a manager for Action Against Hunger’s entrepreneurship program in Dora’s community. “Despite the adversities, she is still going strong along with eleven other women.”
Vásquez added that women like Dora need more opportunities to find new markets and grow their businesses.
A large scale, three-year project led by Action Against Hunger and its partners provided cash assistance to more than 256,000 migrant, refugee, returned, and host community members in Colombia, allowing them to access basic goods and services and address key vulnerabilities.
Women across Latin America are demonstrating their strength on a daily basis, and Action Against Hunger is proud to partner with them to fight hunger. From January to May 2023, our programs reached more than 209,000 people in Latin America, and 57% were women. Maria, Angela, and Dora are just a few examples of the hardworking, assertive, and determined women we work with every day, who are dedicated to achieving an equal world free from hunger.
Action Against Hunger leads the global movement to end hunger. We innovate solutions, advocate for change, and reach 21 million people every year with proven hunger prevention and treatment programs. As a nonprofit that works across 56 countries, our 8,900 dedicated staff members partner with communities to address the root causes of hunger, including climate change, conflict, inequity, and emergencies. We strive to create a world free from hunger, for everyone, for good.
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