Women in an under-resourced section of the Mexican city of Mérida formed a cooperative kitchen in response to the economic hardships of the COVID-19 pandemic. They call themselves Las Zarigüeyas, or “the opossums.” Their aim: Feed their children and keep them in school.

Crump, Zepeda win grant for sustainability in Mexico

“Opossums” defy economic hurdles to feed their children

  • by Trina Kleist

Ana Zepeda received the Grant for Advancing Sustainable Development Goals on behalf of the Crump Lab in order to help women in southern Mexico plant a community garden. Read an excerpt of the article below and follow the link to read the original article. 

Joanna Regulska, right, is the vice provost and dean for global affairs at UC Davis, and offered the keynote address during a recent awards ceremony on campus, where doctoral student Ana Zepeda, left, received an Advancing Sustainable Development Goals Grant.
Joanna Regulska, right, is the vice provost and dean for global affairs at UC Davis, and offered the keynote address during a recent awards ceremony on campus, where doctoral student Ana Zepeda, left, received an Advancing Sustainable Development Goals Grant. (Trina Kleist/UC Davis)

Ana Zepeda has received a $7,300-grant to help women in southern Mexico plant a community garden, intended to provide better nutrition for their children and keep them in school.

Zepeda developed the project as part of her doctoral dissertation in the lab of Amanda Crump, and she’ll start the work later this year. The grant, from the UC Davis Advancing Sustainable Development Goals program, furthers the university’s commitment to support development at home and around the world.

“I will be working with a group of women who started a community kitchen in Mérida, as a result of job loss during COVID-19,” Zepeda explained. “They started pooling their money to lower their food costs and feed their children. They soon expanded and now feed two meals to about 50 kids a day.”

The 25 women in this tourism-dependent community call themselves Las Zarigüeyas, or “the opossums.” So far, the women make money to buy ingredients by collecting recyclable plastic and selling it.

“One of the main motivations for the work of Las Zarigüeyas is to provide meals to keep children in school,” Zepeda wrote in her proposal. “We will help them establish a kitchen garden with vegetables and herbs, using agroecological methods, and we will also provide workshops on how to maintain it,” she added. She expects the garden would add stability to the meals program, improve the students’ learning, and lead to a decrease in inequality in educational achievements compared to children in the city’s wealthier neighborhoods.

Read the full article from the Department of Plant Sciences Website

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Faculty Awards and Rankings Latin America and the Caribbean Mexico