By: Luis Alfonso Albarracin Palomino
[email protected]
One of the difficulties that small food producers in the city present is finding a strategic place to distribute their food that they prepare in their homes and that becomes the main income for their family maintenance. Every day, in the municipalities of the country, tens of thousands of street vendors are observed, who are located on the sides of the main roads, to offer them. These street vendors represent one of the largest and most visible segments of the informal economy in the departmental capital. Although they work in plain sight on the streets of Neiva, the actual number of people who work as informal traders is largely unknown.
For this reason, the initiative that gastronomic festivals have been developing to support these informal workers is noteworthy, through the development of these activities in the area surrounding the facilities of the Mayor’s Office of Neiva. It was a total success, the results of the second version of the Tamal Festival. Nearly ten thousand people attended this event to taste this emblematic dish of Huilense food, which contributed to improving the sales of 80 producers of this exquisite typical product of the region. Through the opening of these scenarios, the preservation of culinary traditions, which are the heritage of our ancestors, is strengthened. 74 varieties of tamales were offered. Something never seen in Neiva. Their creativity and innovation, which exalted this event. They obtained sales close to 90 million pesos, surpassing the sales of the event organized the previous year by 40 million pesos. This contributes to boosting the economy of these families in this town.
This event was organized by the Office of Internationalization and Projects of the Mayor’s Office of Neiva, with the brand ‘Neiva, Vida y Paz’ within the framework of the Gastronomic Festival ‘Paladar’, in coordination with Flor Huila, Coca-Cola, Gas Neiva, Bancamía, Coofisam, Seguridad Nápoles, sponsors who made this event possible. In addition, it had the support of the Neiva Metropolitan Police and the Ninth Brigade of the National Army. This activity was planned, within a roadmap for economic reactivation for Neiva.
The foregoing is part of the government actions of Mayor Gorky Muñoz Calderón, in the implementation of public policies to counteract the growing unemployment that has characterized the entire country, especially in our town, since the end of the Covid pandemic, which decimated the dynamics productive in the region. Likewise, it is a way to counteract the high levels of insecurity, providing job opportunities to the inhabitants who suffer from this economic phenomenon. All the participants felt satisfied with the support that was given to them, highlighting the work of all the officials of the municipal administration who participated in the organization of this great gastronomic event.