Belizean & Mexican Parliamentarians Meet to End Hunger and Malnutrition

Mexican Senator Luisa Maria Calderon Hinojosa is in Belize to meet with the Ministers and C.E.O.s from the Ministries of Education, Agriculture, Health and Human Development. The mission is for Belize to join some seventeen other countries in the strengthening of school feeding programmes in the framework of the Hunger Free Latin America and Caribbean 2025 Initiative. Senator Calderon Hinojosa says that according to statistics, nineteen percent of Belize’s children are suffering from malnutrition and for a change to be made; there must be parliamentary buy-in.  According to Ambassador Carlos Quesnel, last year, government had requested technical and financial assistance from Mexico in this area.

Carlos Quesnel Melendez, Mexican Ambassador to Belize

Carlos Quesnel Melendez

“We had a visit of the Executive Director of the Mexican Agency for International Cooperation last year in October and in a meeting with Senator Hulse, the Minister of Agriculture, the Government of Belize did request some advice from the Mexican parliament/Mexican congress in order for Belize to create the parliamentary front against hunger. Belize is one of the few countries where we don’t have still the existence of such a front.”

Senator Luisa Maria Calderon Hinojosa

Senator Luisa Maria Calderon Hinojosa, Coordinator, Parliamentary Fronts Against Hunger in Latin America & the Caribbean

“We exist since 2009 in Latin America and Caribbean doing laws about good nutrition and to fight against hunger. In Belize, we celebrate since two years ago, FAO and AMEXCID; you know that AMEXCID is an agency from Mexico who supports this political strategy and works with Belize’s government to improve strategy to help children to have a better nutrition, a model of nutrition in the school. The school is the only way that you find children together and you can help them to have a better nutrition. Here in Belize there are nineteen percent of children without good nutrition. There is another problem; not just malnutrition, but there is another new problem that we are fronting that is obesity. Obesity is a big problem to all in Latin America and the Caribbean because obesity has with it sickness that has no remember—diabetes and high pressure.”