Well before the Mayan Train project, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation has been supporting organizations in southern Mexico that strive to make the communities they work in ones in which all children can thrive. The grants the foundation provides support areas such as health, education, food production and language interpretation for access to justice. They also support work in the defense of human rights, Indigenous rights and environmental protection. The W.K. Kellogg Foundation respects its grantees’ active pursuit of these issues, as they determine; but the foundation does not direct the use of funds.
The W.K. Kellogg Foundation has been working in Mexico since 1944, and it now supports more than 100 organizations in the country, from grassroots to more broad-based entities, as well as public universities and research centers. The foundation’s focus on the Yucatán Peninsula began in 2010 – eight years before public conversations about the Mayan Train project began.
All of the work of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation in Mexico complies with all transparency and other requirements of the governments of both the United States and Mexico. The foundation verifies that all of its grantees do so as well.
The W.K. Kellogg Foundation and the Kellogg Company are legally separate entities. As such, the Kellogg Company has no influence on the foundation’s activities, programs or initiatives.
