Indigenous Maternal & Children Welfare (Emberá-Wounaan - Panama)

 
 

By Geoparadise Inc

U.S. donations are 100% tax-deductible.   

SITUATION:

During our water relief project in the Panamanian Darien province (2020/2021), we found out that women there suffer from frequent health and pregnancy complications and have a high incidence of preventable disabilities among their little ones. 

 

In all of the villages our team visited, we have found cases of disability such as blindness, congenital diseases, Down syndrome, cerebral palsy, hydrocephalus, neurological disorders etc. Some of them are in quite a precarious situation, suffering malnourishment and need urgent medical care and regular therapy.Most of these problems are likely caused by the lack of adequate pregnancy control and education, home-births in remote jungle areas with frequent infections due to poor sanitary conditions & water quality, no access to immediate emergency services in case of complications, nor available transport to go to the nearest health centre when needed, etc.

We also noticed there are many families with more kids than they can provide for, making life a struggle for their subsistence from farming and/or fishing economies. It seems apparent that reproductive education and access to affordable and suitable contraception methods are essential steps for these families to be able to lift themselves out of poverty and for their kids to have an opportunity for a better, brighter future.

PLEASE, SUPPORT US IN OUR MISSION:

Our goal is to help families in the Darién indigenous Emberá & Wounaan communities and others, to get familiar with the importance of family planning, reproductive education, and proper maternal care and to enable them to gain education, medical aid, regular checkups and support during and after pregnancy.

We are raising funds for their transport to the doctors, room & meals while in the town/city attending medical appointments, medicines, therapies, baby care products, beds, mattresses, nutritious food, access to education & grants, mobility aids, disability equipment, etc. But there is still a long way to go and we cannot do it alone. We need your support!

Our goal is to fundraise a monthly budget of $800-1000.

This will enable us to establish an emergency fund to help the most vulnerable families and their children with disabilities. There are 5 communities in the area we are working with; Monte Rico community, Caña Blanca, La Reserva, Arizona & Barriales. For project updates and more info about our work, please follow us on Geoparadise’s FB and IG pages.

If you are not able to donate at this time, please share the campaign with your networks.

 
 

DISABILITY ASSISTANCE PROGRAM

 We are currently working on tracking all the pregnancies and disability cases in the area, in order to fully understand the causes and prioritize the intervention correctly, but some of the villages are very difficult to reach during the rainy season so getting all the information together is taking time. For now, we are focusing in Monte Rico, Barriales and Caña Blanca, the areas which are more accessible with bad weather. Dry season is coming soon and we will be able to reach the furthest settlements of La Reserva and Arizona then.

 

During a few of our visits to the area between May and July, we have been providing powdered milk and other staple food items to some of those disabled children and their families, clothes, diapers, toiletries... we have given parents a ride to governmental offices and help them fill the applications for disability assistance, donated 5 beds with Tribal Gathering latex mattresses to Monte Rico and for Caña Blanca 1 bed with a regular mattress and 4 of the TG latex mattresses.

We are set to delivery more beds and 15 more of our TG latex mattresses in the next trip end of November, as well as more clothes, diapers and food to reach more of the affected children. We will also offer to bring back to the city 2 of the most severe cases who need urgent care, proper evaluation, diagnosis and treatment plan. Please, consider making a donation to support this program and even better, make it recurrent to increase your positive impact.

 

 PREGNANCY AND BIRTH CARE PROGRAM

 

During the month of July 2021 we have been really busy tending to 2 women from Caña Blanca with risky pregnancies who were giving birth and who required our support: On June 30th Claudia delivered a premature boy by emergency c-section in the local town health center. Given that the baby was starved of oxygen and presented a worrisome lung infection and congestion when he was born, he had to stay in an intensive care incubator for almost a month on antibiotics and intubated until he was able to breath and eat independently.

While we were in the middle of this, we received a call from another lady from the same village, Elena, who was coming to the city on July 5th, pregnant almost overdue and wanted to avoid similar issues as those Claudia had just gone through, specially bearing in mind her high risk pregnancy with twins. Fortunately, she delivered 2 healthy boys in the children´s hospital on the 14th of July with no complications.

 
 

Our awesome coordinator for all our indigenous programs in the Darien, Aisen Valdés, kindly welcomed both couples in her family home in Panama city for the duration of their stay. With funds provided by GeoParadise and a handful of other generous donors, plus some latex mattresses from Tribal Gathering taken to her home to fit her 6 new guests (2 couples and 2 kids), she lovingly cared for these families, fed them, accompanied them to several hospital and clinical lab visits, helped them with communications in Spanish (as is not their mother tongue) with doctors and nurses, got them baby clothes, diapers, baby items, baby baskets and play-cribs.

She also made the arrangements to make sure that Claudia´s hospital fees were 99% exonerated, due to the extreme poverty background. She drove Elena and her family back home on GeoParadise rental vehicle and she liaised with the office of the Member of Parlament for the Darien Province, to provide the return transport on the 7th of August for Claudia when her baby was finally stable, safe and sound, a month and 1 week after his birth.

In order to be able to keep helping other women like Claudia and Elena, we need your support. Please, make a contribution to this campaign if you can or share it in your social networks for others to find out about it. Any amount helps and you can truly change a child´s life for the better.