SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, Feb. 14 (EUROPE PRESS) –
The Government of the Canary Islands, through the Ministries of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries and of Social Rights, Equality and Youth, has presented a program to promote healthy eating among families who are at risk of social exclusion or poverty on the islands ; an initiative in which the Canarian Federation of Municipalities (Fecam) will play an active role.
The event was attended by the Minister of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries, Alicia Vanoostende; the Minister of Social Rights, Equality and Youth, Noemí Santana, and the president of Fecam, María Concepción Brito.
The program, called ‘Healthy food for families at risk of social exclusion or poverty in the Canary Islands’, has as its main objective to contribute to providing healthy food to the beneficiaries, while stressing the importance of healthy habits and promotes the consumption of Canarian products.
Alicia Vanoostende explained that thanks to this project “not only will the needs of the most vulnerable families be met, but the marketing of products from the primary sector, which has suffered from the problems caused by the pandemic, will be promoted.” As an example, she cited the archipelago’s dairies, which have had to store their products due to marketing problems.
Likewise, the councilor highlighted that one of the main potentialities of this project is that “we promote a healthy and healthy diet and encourage and promote the consumption of fresh and local products, which will help increase the production of the primary sector and its weight in the local economy”.
For her part, Noemí Santana assured that this program “tries to take care of the health of those who have fewer resources at their fingertips.” And he does it with a project that fulfills a triple objective: “to promote healthy eating among vulnerable families, promote the consumption of zero kilometer products in the Canary Islands and favor the circular economy, protecting local agriculture”, he pointed out.
“With this project we unite the two things that we are most interested in taking care of, our health and our land. And by protecting local agriculture we are also working for the sustainability of our islands, an important challenge that we must all participate in,” Noemí added. Santana.
María Concepción Brito wanted to highlight “the example of co-governance between the different entities that participate in this project to reach the most vulnerable families with an initiative that promotes healthy eating and the consumption of local products”.
The president of Fecam explained that there are already 54 municipalities from all the islands attached to the project and the forecast is that the rest will join in the coming weeks, since they will be the ones to carry out the evaluation and monitoring of the most vulnerable families of their municipalities to determine the aid given to each one.
DISCLOSURE OF THE PROJECT.
The dissemination of the project will be carried out under the slogan ‘Much more than a box’, because the food will be distributed through nearly 78,000 packages, whose content will be selected for its quality and nutritional contributions, always zero kilometer.
Specifically, from the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries, through Management of the Rural Environment of the Canary Islands (GMR Canarias), it is intended to promote direct support to many producers of the primary sector of the islands that are approved by this public company. In addition, the consumption of fruits and vegetables will be encouraged and the beneficiaries will contribute to a healthy diet. Thus, the project will allow families to know what options exist between fresh Canarian products to replace other processed ones.
The content of the boxes is made up of basic necessities, fresh, healthy and with a high nutritional value, selected by GMR Canarias and distributed by FECAM. Eggs, milk, gofio, cheese and seasonal fruits and vegetables will make up the baskets that will be delivered periodically to households in difficulty.
A pilot test of the project has already been carried out successfully, which consisted of the delivery of some 100 boxes to the municipalities of Firgas and Santa María de Guía, in Gran Canaria. It served to verify the suitability of carrying out this type of initiative to combat economic and social exclusion in the Canary Islands, thus eradicating social inequalities.
