Soy Visits throughout San Pedro Sula

Thursday – February 25, 2010

The team met with over 50 participants from the Conference and boarded buses to travel to our first field visit stop of the day. Over two years ago, WISHH/NSRL installed a SoyCow at the feeding center of Padre Peris. The Rotary Usula group donated the SoyCow to the organization to include a glass of soy milk for each child in their program. Father Peris is a local priest who has built a feeding center to serve lunch to over 80 children each day. The kitchen is large and bright with beautiful, hand-painted murals. The cooks have become experts at including the soy milk and okara from the SoyCow into their daily meals. Each child also receives a glass of soy milk with each meal.

After the visit to the Padre Peris’s program, the team and conference participants re-boarded the buses and traveled to Guaderia Numero Cuatro to see the textured soy protein (TSP) lunch program in action. The day care center has been using the TSP in the children’s meals for over a year. NSRL/WISHH with support from the Illinois Soybean Association and Cargill introduced the TSP and provide training and impact measurement assistance. The meals have been well liked by the children and the TSP has been found to be easy to prepare by the cooks. In addition to this, the day care centers have seen a cost savings as well as an increase in the protein content of the meals.

The team and the conference participants were now ready for lunch and the next project field visit. We traveled to CASA Aurora, a San Pedro Sula based non-governmental organization that supports families living with HIV/AIDS. Over two years ago, NSRL/WISHH began working with CASA Aurora by introducing TSP and demonstrating how to work with the soy protein in local recipes. The team at CASA Aurora took those initial training efforts and ran! They developed numerous soy –based recipes. These ladies are incredibly creative and talented chefs.

In 2009, NSRL/WISHH began a microenterprise effort with CASA Aurora through support from the Illinois Soybean Association and Cargill. Product information and training was provided by NSRL staff person Vijaya Jain and sales training and packaging assistance was provided by Distribudora del Caribe. The ladies of CASA Aurora began to market small packages of TSP into their community. Some of the CASA Aurora sales team even began producing food items including the TSP and marketing this as a higher value item throughout their neighborhoods.

A delicious soy lunch was prepared and served by the team at CASA Aurora. Many expressed how much they enjoyed the foods and how they were impressed at the use of soy in the local delicacies. It was a beautiful meal and showcased the talents of the ladies of CASA Aurora. Their creativity and culinary skills are always a treat to experience!

The team and conference participants then traveled to the Siboney School in Villanueva to see one of the Cargill Corporate Social Responsibility projects in action. This school is near a Cargill facility and teams of volunteers from Cargill built a beautiful, new kitchen facility for the school in 2009. They saw the value of nutrition in the school day and invested in the construction of the kitchen.

After all the visits, the team and conference participants had several great examples of corporate social responsibility in action. They also witnessed first-hand the impact of improved nutrition and the value of this type of investment.

Roundtable discussions were held in the afternoon for those interested in project development and collaboration discussions.

A team dinner was held at a local Mexican restaurant. We enjoyed a casual dinner where we could discuss our recent experiences and share everyone’s thoughts about the trip and about the work being done with soy in Central America.