Madre teams up with Eat Like A Local to empower women in Mexico City for International Women's Day

Born and raised in Mexico City, Rocio Vazquez Landeta founded the food tour company Eat Like Local in 2018.

Her journey began with a realisation while traveling: to truly experience a city, one must explore it through the eyes of locals.

Inspired by this ethos, Eat Like A Local has been offering authentic food tours, showcasing Mexico City’s vibrant culinary scene to hundreds of visitors each year.

However, Rocio’s mission goes beyond just providing food experiences. After a string of abusive relationships and having to flee her own home, Rocio came to a realisation.

She had stayed in these relationships because she couldn’t afford to leave.

If Rocio needed financial independence to fix her situation, it was likely other women were in the same boat.

This led her to establish a social program aimed at supporting young females in the La Merced and Jamaica Markets.

Rocio Vazquez said:

“The main goal of the program is to expose kids from La Merced and Jamaica Markets to kindness, feminism, inclusion, respect, and love.

“We teach them to say no, that their voice matter, that they can leave any situation when they feel uncomfortable. We teach them to set boundaries, self-love, and self-care; we teach them everything we wish someone told us when we were kids growing up in a misogynistic world.

“We want to show them that education can actually lead to a better life and that knowledge can set them free, that they are not powerless. It is about cultural exchange, great ideas, and great people is about creating the world we want to live in, by changing one kid at a time.”

Working with specific females in the market, Eat Like A Local utilises funds raised from their tours to provide education on various topics including English language skills, sexual education, feminism, and financial independence. The goal is to broaden their horizons and empower them to create a better future for themselves.

The programme is divided into four areas:

English lessons: The girls get English lessons every week or daily depending on their school schedule.

A culinary program: Each month the girls research and learn about all aspects from a different country, from religion to social issues. Whilst trying food from the country they discuss what they have learnt.

Feminism and sex education: Eat Like A Local make all the key information accessible to the girls; the idea is to give them tools to set them free.

Financial education: The girls are taught to save money, how to make more money, what assets they have so they can create a business with them or apply for a job. They’re also given the opportunity to have Rocio and the team save their money for them so that family and partners can not take from their earnings.

To support Eat Like A Local, and their social program, Madre has joined forces by adding a £1 donation to bills when serving tap water throughout March.

These donations will be collated and sent to Rocio and the team with the specific aim of helping one female in particular who is currently trying to save money to study outside of Mexico due to the mafia becoming increasingly violent in her market.

Madre said:

“We’ve visited Mexico more times than we can count and we could go on for hours about the country’s hospitality, the unrivalled street food scene and the incredible people we’ve met along the way.

“We’re always wanted to do something to show our appreciation to locals there; It was on a recent trip to Mexico City that one of the team went on the Eat Like a Local tour and saw the work Rocio and the team were doing.

“It was a no-brainer,, working with an incredible hospitality team to support women whose lives had been dedicated to the food industry of the city was where our efforts had to be focused.”