CIE TAA' PI'T ONG
Comunidad intercultural Educativa
nutrition & Cooking Workshops
Workshops include preparation of healthy food, drinks, snacks, condiments and natural remedies and the promotion of sustainable practices in the kitchen.
Our cooking workshops for mothers focus on reclaiming ancestral nutritional knowledge — specifically, the benefits that local foods offer a growing body and how to prepare them. Mothers learn about the importance of healthy eating and its benefits-- such as strengthening the body’s defenses, and supporting their children's development, growth, and learning capacity-- as well as the negative consequences of processed food and junk foods.
The Ancesteral Nutrition program (formerly, Essence of Our Food) began in 2018, to the mothers of our students only. In 2022, we invited the mothers of first grade children from 10 schools in our community. One hundred and twenty-five of them participated in three introductory workshops and thirty of them were integrated into the program.
ComplEmentary Workshops
In these workshops, mothers learn how to make soap and biodegradable disinfectants for use in the family kitchen. In this way we contribute to counteract the contamination of Lake Atitlán and the excessive use of plastic wrapping. They also learn techniques for emotional health that includes ancestral practices and “Compassionate Listening.”
The Ancestral Nutrition program focuses on the essence of our foods within the context of our culture, educating the mothers about healthy nutrition, including the properties of specific foods and their contribution to a healthy body. It also promotes environmentally friendly food preparation, as well as the recovery of the spirituality found in ancestral community gastronomy.