Children and families in Haiti and Guatemala are some of the most severely impacted by hunger and malnutrition in the world. Many rely on meager earnings from the informal economy and have no support system. Without work or reduced incomes the past few years due to Covid, in addition to civil unrest, they are facing dire circumstances.

Haiti was recently ranked in the world’s worst 10 hunger crises (FAO of UN). Around 4.3 million people, more than one in three Haitians, currently need urgent food assistance (Integrated Food Security Phase Classification). Roughly 1 in 5 children are chronically malnourished in Haiti, and 40 percent experience stunting because they do not have enough food to eat on a daily basis, causing long-term development challenges (Partners In Health).

In response to this critical rise in malnutrition, HRI has recently expanded our Children First nutritional feeding program in Haiti to serve more severely malnourished children and families.

When schools closed due to Covid in 2020, HRI quickly transitioned our school feeding program to an emergency feeding program focused on the most vulnerable families in the communities we serve in rural Guatemala and urban Haiti. Most of the children we serve are back in school now benefitting from HRI school feeding programs, but for those who are not, we are continuing our emergency distributions to families.

In addition, in 2020 HRI started distributing food baskets to vulnerable adults including elderly, chronically ill and people with disabilities who are in extreme need of assistance in urban communities in Guatemala. This work continues today.

We also provided 86 farming families with a one time gift of the seeds, fertilizer and pesticide needed to ensure they were able to plant their corn that provided the majority of their food from late 2020 through most of 2021.

HRI is ensuring that no child in our programs goes hungry because of Covid-19, political instability, or any other natural or manmade disaster!

‍