According the World Food Programme, in Guatemala, the chronic under nutrition rate for children under 5 is 49.8% . It is the highest in the region and the fourth highest in the world. It means that nearly half of the children under 5 do not have access to proper food. Malnutrition has disastrous consequences on children’s growth: it can cause brain damage, emotional distress and unfortunately death. This is so sad!!
How can we help those infants?
With 5$ a month, you can feed 20 infants a day for 500 days! By becoming a member of Members Unite, you can feed a child in the project: Give infants a lease on life. You can support many other projects too.
What is Members Unite
It is a collaborative action network that gives you the opportunity to help others in need. As a member you can suggest projects, discuss and vote for projects that will receive the donations.I signed up for this community yesterday. It took me only 5 minutes to do so: all you need is an email address and name. You can even sign up with your Facebook or Twitter account.
I explored the site with my 10-year-old. I wanted to show him how lucky he was. I want to tell him that a small gesture can have a big impact on someone’s life. I want to show him that life is not easy for other people and that if we help, we can make a difference in someone’s life.
How does it work?
Each month few projects are selected. They are discussed along the month and by the end of the month, a winner is announced. The month is organized in weekly tasks:
- Week 1: Help decide which project makes the first cut
- Week 2: Straw Poll
- Week 3: Final 3
- Week 4: Winner announcement
It is interesting because it keeps the engagement and interest all along the month For the month of March, 9 projects were selected. We loved all of them. Each one served a different goal and helped in a different way. It was really hard to decide which one we will be voting for.
We managed to choose 3 projects though
Give infants a Lease on Life: My son was nearly crying when he noticed that many children did not have access to proper food. If this project wins the community will provide 20 infants with milk for 500 days
Make low-income houses a home: My son and I thought it was great to help building a home for families and be protected from cold. If this project wins, the community will buy and donate 30 front doors for Habitat building projects in the San Fransisco Bay area
Empower at risk women with fresh food :Eating fresh produce is not affordable for many people. If this project wins, the community will provide healthy produce to a local shelter for an entire year.
It was really hard to decide but we had to choose. We chose to help children grow and feed them with milk. We voted for Give infants a lease of life. It was a great awareness exercise for my son and I: Helping each other will make us better people.
And you: how can you help today? Which project would you choose? For $5 a month you can help so many people so why wait: sign up now.
For a limited time, Members Unite is offering my community a 50% off discount on the annual membership fee of $25! Use code “WELOVEMOMS” when you sign up
It really is amazing how just pocket change really can change lives. I’d choose the fresh food initiative, as it’s really difficult to get fresh food in a lot of areas, even in North America.
Fresh food is pretty expensive these days.. I try to buy local produce and freeze.