In many places around the world, the COVID-19 pandemic raised the spectre of food insecurity.

Measures to combat the disease and limit its transmission plunged numerous families further into hardship. In the countries where TSF operates, most people live hand to mouth. The dramatic economic slowdown wiped out countless jobs and income-generating activities, leaving many without options.

TSF quickly launched various efforts with its partners to support the most vulnerable populations.

At the start of the pandemic, close to 80 families in Ricaurte, Ecuador, Latin America’s hardest-hit country, received baskets of food staples. Many of these families had children with disabilities who no longer had access to services from the Unidad Educativa Especializada Fiscomisional Nuestra Señora del Carmen, a specialized school and TSF partner. A family garden project is also underway in the Ricaurte community, with support from an agronomist.

In Haiti, community agriculture was developed as a solution to food insecurity. In Vialet, TSF launched a project with three main objectives: ensure the production of food, establish a reproducible agroecological system, and help organizations and associations take charge of such a system.

For the moment, our activities include field placements for developer-agroecologists, compost production, and plantlet distribution for both vegetable crops and the conservation of endangered species like the breadfruit tree and the pomegranate. 
In Mali, 52 villages with a total of more than 60,000 inhabitants were at the heart of a project led by TSF subsidiary Sahel 21. Cooking equipment (bowls, cauldrons, improved stoves, couscous pots, skimmers, ladles, etc.), local staple grains (millet and sorghum) and other foods (corn, beans, peanuts, smoked fish, eggs, sugar, milk, oil, onions, spices, etc.) were distributed. In each village, a women’s committee of nutritionists also offered cooking demonstrations.

Currently, this kind of project can be seen as a form of secondary emergency relief that helps save many lives.