World Food Programme Fighting Hunger Worldwide

Carmen, her husband and their three children fled their home in Colombia nine months ago to escape the violence meted out by the various paramilitary groups and organized crime syndicates involved in the ongoing conflict in their country.

“The rations that we get every month from WFP mean that we can breathe a bit,” Carmen says, explaining how the food voucher she gets from WFP enables her to buy fruit, vegetables and fresh meat at the local store.

Carmen's husband has an injured arm that needs to be dressed every day.

Carmen and her family are part of a huge refugee community in Ecuador, which hosts the largest number of refugees in the western hemisphere. Approximately a thousand asylum seekers cross the border each month, fleeing violence in Colombia. 

When she has a spare moment, Carmen goes out onto the small patio to check up on a small bird that she brought home a few days earlier.

The bird flew into the side of a bus and fell to the ground near where Carmen was selling juice with her husband. Nursing it back to life is now a family project.