Peru Vaso de Leche

A Peruvian food assistance program, whose name means Glass of Milk, that began as a Lima municipal initiative on March 30, 1984, the first program launched under newly elected Lima mayor Alfonso Barrantes, before Peru's Congress unanimously passed Law No. 24059 establishing it as national policy on December 21, 1984, promulgated by President Fernando Belaunde Terry on January 6, 1985. The program grew out of neighborhood Mothers Clubs, most prominently one founded in the El Agustino district of Lima, and organizes local Vaso de Leche committees, largely run by women, that distribute a daily food ration, historically a glass of milk, prioritized for children aged 0 to 6 and pregnant women, and extended to children 7 to 13, older adults and people with tuberculosis. During Peru's economic crises of the 1980s and 1990s the program expanded rapidly, delivering an estimated one million glasses of milk in its first year through about 7,400 neighborhood committees and eventually reaching close to half of Peruvian households with children aged 3 to 11.