Mexico
COVID-19 Relief in Mexico: Food kits
Providing emergency food security to highly vulnerable families in Mexico during the pandemic
Crisis Response
The Need
In Mexico, the impact of COVID-19 has been nothing short of devastating. The fragile health care system was unprepared for national crisis, while the lockdowns multiplied unemployment rates, crippling the economy. Children living in poverty have experienced the most severe impacts of the pandemic, facing the heightened risks of disease, starvation and abuse.
Throughout the crisis, Compassion Mexico has been equipping church partners to respond to children’s most urgent needs. This has included delivering emergency food and hygiene packages, as well as providing children with school supplies, preventive health information and medical treatment as needed. Our church partners have also been working hard to ensure that children with unemployed parents do not become subject to forced labour or begging on the streets.
While delivering emergency relief packages to beneficiary families in their communities, 179 Compassion centres identified a further 8,566 beneficiaries who desperately needed more nutritional support to prevent further malnutrition and starvation. Already doing all that they could, our frontline church partners were stretched thin—they needed help to reach these children and their families to help them put food in their bellies and prevent malnutrition.
Our Response
Thanks to your generous support, 179 church partners in Mexico responded to the hunger crisis by providing food packages to 8,566 highly vulnerable children and their families—for a total of 34,264 people.
This emergency intervention provided life-saving food supplies—enough for two meals per day for 10 days—to combat malnutrition. Households were selected based on need through a nationwide survey, with criteria including employment status, number of household members, access to health services and quality of living conditions.
Each church formed teams to carry out the intervention: a purchasing team to seek quotes from suppliers and buy groceries according to the context and needs of each community, an assembly team to make the family food kits, a safety team to ensure volunteers had the proper personal protective equipment and a delivery team to drop off the food packages to caregivers who were unable to leave their homes. Once the food items were received from the suppliers, volunteers disinfected the items, washed the fruits and vegetables and assembled the food kits.
Following safety protocols, caregivers were given a time slot when they could pick up their food kits from their local churches. A recipe book prepared by a health specialist was distributed to give families ideas of how to prepare nutrient-dense, balanced meals. During the monitoring stage in October, some families identified as extremely high risk were given a second food kit to help sustain them. Upon delivery, staff also educated caregivers and distributed pamphlets on COVID-19 preventive measures. Staff also used WhatsApp to educate some caregivers. Our frontline church partners supplied the cost of transportation, food kit deliveries and personal protective equipment.
An amendment was made to the scope and budget of this intervention to cover the cost of medicine for a frontline church pastor who had contracted COVID-19. Thankfully, he has recovered and is back to good health.
Activities
Food kits: Families were thankful to receive the food packages, which provided them with healthy ingredients to nourish their children at home during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Cookbooks: The health specialist created a cookbook to give ideas for nutritious meals. The recipes were included with each family’s food kit.
COVID-19 prevention: Beneficiaries learned what precautions to take to prevent the spread of COVID-19 through pamphlets and educational talks.
Your Gift Provides...
• Food kits for 8,566 at-risk families, providing two meals a day for 10 days
o Food items varied depending on the area, but most included milk, eggs, beans, lentils, fruit and vegetables
ReportA message from a pastor
Your support for the families of beneficiaries has been important since the situation in which they live is complicated. Thanks to your help, their families’ situations have changed. This intervention has had a great impact because the distributed pantries were abundant, filled with necessary items. The food baskets have been a source of much blessing.
Thanks to this intervention, it is now possible to work in a broader way with families in the community, since we offered not only words, but provided them with the highest necessity— food for their families. The impact in our community, families and surrounding areas has been very great, because they see a church that not only preaches, but is acting in favour of those most in need—supporting them in a very difficult and complicated time.
The fact that the doors of our church and Compassion centre are open to deliver this type of consistent, abundant help has made a strong impact and gives us the ability to reach the most hardened hearts. Through this intervention, the doors to their hearts have been opened. People are eager to hear from God and they want to give thanks to Him.
Your support has brought us closer to the people as we have ministered to them in a very close way—not only spiritually but also tangibly, with materials to supply their needs in a consistent way by reaching both their tables and their hearts.
Thank you very much. We feel blessed and all the families feel very grateful. Every time they come to the church, they express their gratitude for those who have made this blessing possible.
ReportA message from those your gift helped
My life before receiving the provisions kit was one of great uncertainty. My parents work but the money they receive is insufficient—they do not have enough to buy provisions. They had to borrow money to buy enough food to feed my family.
This intervention has changed me a lot because my mother stopped borrowing or asking for food on slate. It means a lot that you helped us because my family eats better thanks to the provisions kit. It has helped us get ahead in these days that have been very difficult. It has many items that help us have a good diet. It includes recipes that give us more options for healthy cooking.
I thank God for not leaving us alone and for sending people like you, who have a big heart and have helped us in these difficult times. I have learned to value people and I pray to God for you. I would like to thank you infinitely for all that you have given us. May God multiply everything you have given us and may He bless you. My family is very grateful to you for helping us. Infinite blessings to all!
ReportThank you for your generosity
Your gift mitigated the impact of food insecurity during a stressful time of pandemic unemployment for 8,566 of the most vulnerable families from 179 church partners across Mexico. When families felt scared, abandoned and hopeless, you responded to their most pressing needs by providing food baskets when they had no economic resources to purchase groceries and feed their children.
Through medical checkups following the intervention, we determined that least 80 per cent of the families have improved their nutritional status, and there has been a reduction in gastrointestinal diseases. A total of 34,264 people were fed thanks to your investment in this emergency intervention.
The communities in which these churches minister have taken notice of the churches’ determination to serve vulnerable families during these difficult times. They have gained a new perspective of what the church does and how it is there to display God’s love for everyone to see and experience in a genuine way.
As Compassion beneficiaries’ caregivers seek to find gainful employment following a season of scarcity and uncertainty, they will never forget how you saw them and chose to respond with compassion and generosity so they could feed their families. Your gift proved that God will never leave them nor forsake them—even during a world pandemic.