Organization:
Meals4hope promotes and supports projects that help communities feed the children in some of the poorest areas in Venezuela.
They also aim to strengthen community organizations and women empowerment in meaningful ways, so the resilience of families and communities is enhanced, and people can work together to address their own needs.
Click here to visit their website
Project Location:
Barquisimeto, Lara State, Venezuela
Objectives:
The program seeks to care for/protect and train/provide psychological tools to the development and humanitarian programs staff in stressful situations. Among the objectives are:
- Create a supportive space/network where participants, feeling safe, can share their experiences and emotions, minimize the adverse effects of stress (the cost of caring) and strengthen themselves emotionally for resilience.
- To review and work on ‘empathy burnout’ and help participants’ emotional recovery. Decrease levels of emotional burnout, improving participants’ overall health and well-being.
- Reduce sources of individual vulnerability and strengthen sources of resilience. In cases of compassion fatigue, assist in moving to compassion satisfaction and hope.
- Provide tools to detect symptoms of stress and its management - identify, understand, and work through the burnout caused by humanitarian work (compassion fatigue or empathy burnout), risk factors, and elements for protection to prevent it.
- Provide tools and strategies and support the development of self-care skills (individual and group) to prevent and cope with the emotional toll caused by the crisis (direct and to others) - Identify resources to strengthen resilience.
Beneficiaries:
- 17 workers/volunteers from 7 projects in Lara and Portuguesa.
- Indirect beneficiaries: approximately 550 children and their families from the projects served by the participants.
- 16 are female, 1 male.
- 14 are Meals4hope volunteers, and 3 are from partner organizations with whom we work together.
Status:
Completed
Sector:
Health (Mental health)
Dates:
1st Agreement: February 2020 - April 2020
2nd Agreement: May 2020 - August 2020
Grant:
Under US$10,000
Fiscal sponsor: Mi Grano de Arena (migranodearena.org)
In the circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic and the mobility restrictions, the “Helping us to help them: Psychological Support for Carers” project had to be suspended until further notice. However, the carers are facing the same or even greater pressure amid the pandemic. The Local Partner is requesting authorization to use part of the funds allocated to the workshops and training to continue the engagement of the psychologist to assist the carer remotely.
Reports:
Complying with the agreement brokered by Bastion between the donors and Meals4Hope, the organization sends reports about the execution process and about monitoring.
You can find the final report here (in Spanish).
