Fyffes and its winter melon business, Sol Group, have organized community medical brigades to reach 15 communities surrounding its cantaloupe, watermelon and honeydew melon farms, according to a news release.
The program provided four medical clinics, five doctors, four nurses and five ambulances in the regions of Choluteca and El Paraiso, where its farms are located. The program objective is to ensure that employees, their families and the local community can have access to adequate and otherwise hard-to-reach healthcare during the summer off-season, says Fyffes.
Launched in July 2022, the community medical brigades consisted of teams of at least one doctor, one nurse and one pharmacist who conducted weekly medical visits to each community to provide primary care, awareness and prevention talks as well as donations of medications to community members.
The most prevalent medical conditions treated by the brigades included hypertension and diabetes. The largest beneficiaries were adult and elderly women, followed by adult men and children, the release said.
“Fyffes and Sol Group are committed to support the local communities from where we employ over 5,000 seasonal workers and 400 permanent workers,” said Michael Fletes, sustainability coordinator for Fyffes. “Access to medical treatment is a human right, and we are pleased to be able to contribute to meeting the communities’ needs during the summer off-season.”
Related: Fyffes delivers report on first-year impact of Honduran melon strategy
In 2021 and 2022, Fyffes conducted a community needs assessment in the areas surrounding its farms in Honduras, and many of the surveyed residents indicated that the medical infrastructure in the region was inadequate.
In addition to the community medical brigades, Fyffes has initiated other projects in the area, including supplying fresh fruit to a primary school’s nutrition program; installing sanitation equipment in a primary school so that children could return to education post COVID-19; implementing a summer corn planting program to provide off-season employment and access to nutrition for Fyffes seasonal workers; and Fyffes’ ongoing gender equality training program.
Fyffes is one of the largest importers of Fair Trade-certified bananas in the world, the release said. It became part of the Sumitomo Corporation in 2017. Since 2013, Sol Group has been a subsidiary of Fyffes.
