By Susan Dix Lyons | Founder
Access to health services is very tough for many in rural Nicaragua. Some – like Yamileth – have to walk miles to find care for their families. Yamileth is one of the moms in our Prenatal Nutrition Group at Clinica Verde. She's 33 years old, married, with two children. Yamileth became a member of our Prenatal Nutrition Group to learn more about taking care of her body and raising a healthy baby. She lives in a very poor community located miles from Clinica Verde, with difficult paths in poor conditions that make her journey a struggle. And yet she comes.
Each Wednesday, Yamileth travels to Clinica Verde to receive education and health services provided by our obstetrician and a prenatal nurse. She also receives additional services that she and her family need. Sometimes she comes in the company of her youngest son, who loves visiting the Clinica Verde bio-intensive garden. In fact, Yamileth and her son say that that's what they love most about Clinica Verde: the garden. Because of the work and education at Clinica Verde, Yamileth now has a bio-intensive garden in her own home yard. She believes that learning about the garden and how to raise healthy and nutritious food for her family was the most important part of the education she received as part of our Prenatal Nutrition Group. Yamileth is proud that she learned to harvest her own healthy vegetables rich in nutrients to nurture and protect her family.
As for the travel, we're doing the best we can to bring our services to those of our patients like Yamileth who live in hard-to-reach areas. This year, we have 6 new sites for our Prenatal Nutrition Groups.
We can help Yamileth and other rural moms like her only because of your support. Thanks for helping us change lives.
More About Our Prenatal Nutrition Program
The Prenatal Nutrition Program that Yamileth is a part of is one of the cornerstone programs at Clinica Verde – and, we believe, a powerful step towards empowering local communities to improve and transform their health and that of their families. Here are some quick stats:
• Our Prenatal Nutrition Program has served 3,543 pregnant women since starting. In 2017, we served 307 pregnant moms
• During the same period, we served 7,154 children 0 to 5 years old. In 2017, we served 553 children
• Upon completion of the program, 80% of moms increased their knowledge about the normal development of a baby and child in the first 5 years of life
• 100% of graduating moms could identify the use of 3 fruits to improve overall nutrition (pretest data showed 83%)
• 80% of moms could identify and use 3 vegetables to improve overall nutrition (pretest data showed 50%)
• 100% of graduating moms could identify signs of malnutrition and obesity
We're now serving and educating moms through this program at additional sites in the region to expand our impact – including in a couple villages in partnership with the Ministry of Health of Nicaragua. Big thanks to you for making this possible!
Please reach out any time with your thoughts, questions and ideas. We're so grateful for your support.
Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.
If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can receive an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.
