Success Story

In Nicaragua, 1.7M people experience insufficient food consumption (population 6.4M)

El Marañonal is an impoverished community located in Mateare, Managua. By 10:30 a.m., the community’s dirt streets start filling up with children who have finished their school day and are walking towards the improvised feeding center with a bowl in their hands.

This is the first food shift of the day for the Carita Feliz, Corazón Contento feeding center. Students and children walk by to receive their daily meal, some stay to have lunch and others take it home to share with their parents. An hour later the second shift begins, students who study in the afternoon arrive to have lunch and then go directly to school.

Since the center started with A Mission for Children's (ANF) help in 2016, mothers like Nidia and Martha help with its organization, cooking activities, and lend their homes to cook and serve the food. Mothers gather on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays in one of their houses to cook meals for approximately 130 children, elderlies, and pregnant women that visit the center. With love and effort, they create new recipes with the ingredients that are available.

These mothers help because they have seen the impact a meal 3 times a week makes in the lives of these vulnerable children. Elizabeth, a mother of 6 children, is very grateful for the support the community has received. As a single mother, she knows it is hard for her to provide food security for all her children daily. With the daily meal her children receive at the center she feels relieved.