Friends International Bilingual Center (FIBC) in La Paz, Bolivia, nurtures young Friends’ spiritual life through Christian education workshops and courses. We create a space where they can live out their faith. For example, they carry out service work projects to support Bolivians who are most in need because of climate change effects. I feel grateful to God that many children and young adult Friends have participated energetically in spirit through the FIBC since 2016.
Bolivian teenagers and Young Adult Friends initiated the Food Security Project at the beginning of this year to address the impact of climate change on Bolivian families. At the end of 2022, Aymara Indigenous people living in the highlands faced hunger due to severe drought caused by climate change. Many families in small villages who depend mainly on the potato crop for food lost their seeds, which meant there was no harvest this year in March. One year's harvest needs to provide food for the coming year and seed for the next season's crop. Thus, these Indigenous people were unable to harvest in March and April to sustain their families.
The Friends International Bilingual Center was able to raise funds for this Food Security Project. Young Friends visited families in their communities and distributed potatoes on Saturdays from 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. In the first stage of this project, from March to June, we provided three months of potatoes (100 pounds) to each family at a cost of $50 (U.S.) per family. A total of 150 families received help.
In the second stage of our project, from September to November, more than 300 families received seed potatoes for sowing in October and early November of 2023. We distributed 125 pounds of seed potatoes to each family at a cost of $50 (U.S.) per family. We will continue working on this Food Security Project if God opens the way to do this work. Families are happy because they were able to sow the potatoes this year—but they will have to wait for the harvest until next March. Meanwhile, there is a need for food to sustain their families. So, we will start distributing potatoes, oil, and sugar to families in January 2024 as part of the third stage of our Food Security Project.
We send our gratitude to the members of the New England Yearly Meeting for their generosity by supporting our FIBC Food Security Project. With the favor of God, this project has been a success and a blessing!
Please, read the more about this Seed Potatoes project on our website.
[Center Director Emma Condori has visited New England Friends many times.]