Puente a la Salud Comunitaria

Oaxaca is the second poorest state in Mexico: despite its agriculture-based economy, rural communities across the state have high rates of malnutrition and struggle to achieve food security. Founded in 2003, Puente a la Salud Comunitaria (Puente) works with families, health workers, and farmers to promote consumption and cultivation of the grain amaranth—a staple in the diet of indigenous groups for 7,000 years before it was eradicated during colonization—as a participatory community development strategy.

EMpower’s fourth grant to Puente supports their efforts to engage rural Oaxacan youth as agents of community development, with a focus on nutrition, sustainable organic farming, and small-scale agricultural production.