This summer, Dr. Kathleen Colverson worked with colleagues and friends from FLACSO University and an NGO in Ecuador (EkoRural) on two projects that focus on nutrition, poverty, and gender equality. Both projects target low-income women and their families to improve their rapidly deteriorating diets which have succumbed to the pressures of fast and overly processed food. With this deterioration, both hypertensive disease and diabetes mellitus have escalated. The goals and objectives for Dr. Colverson's Fulbright experience were to assist with data collection and supervision of graduate students who would be collecting gendered data, as well as develop and deliver appropriate training materials and workshops.
Due to Covid-19 lockdowns and delays in multiple IRB approvals, the projects were delayed in starting and maintaining momentum. In addition, the country experienced a lengthy national strike which prevented field work. However, one of the important lessons Dr. Colverson learned about living and working abroad is how to pivot and adapt to changing circumstances! By pivoting, she was able to visit a few sites where women farmers are active, including farmer markets and “agroferias” which are centrally located sites for collective marketing to discuss their issues related to gender equality and farming. She was also able to create and provide a workshop and seminars to students and faculty as well as provide training materials to those who will be following up with issues related to integrating gender and nutrition into these projects.
Overall, Dr. Colverson's experience was rewarding and expanded her hands-on experiences in Latin America which has often been a neglected geographic area for development in the past years, with such intensive focus on sub-Saharan Africa and southeast Asia. Because of this Fulbright opportunity, Dr. Colverson will be working with UF colleagues to develop both a study tour opportunity with other Ecuadorian universities and a grant proposal to assist women’s groups in coastal Ecuador with both nutrition and marketing.
