October 2009 Newsletter

First Casa de Espera awaiting interior finishing

Following a recent donation from the Dominion Woman’s Club in Virginia, interior work on this maternity waiting house in Peru can begin. The house is expected to open before year’s end.

Although when translated literally, Casa de Espera means “waiting house,” for many pregnant women of Amazon jungle communities the phrase takes on far larger meaning.

Many times between life and death.

“House of hope,” an alternate translation, is perhaps the more appropriate of the two, noted Linda Pfeiffer, president and chief executive officer of INMED Partnerships for Children.

Too many expectant mothers have little to no access to health care. Where health care facilities do exist in the rugged country, they are often too far for women whose only mode of transportation is a boat with a small portable 2-cycle engine on the river, sometimes taking up to 12 hours to reach the closest health care facility.

As part of its Healthy Babies program in Peru, INMED has been working with local municipalities and health ministries to build maternity waiting houses near health facilities throughout the country’s Ucayali Region.

The maternity waiting houses will allow expectant mothers and their families to reside there in the last stages of their pregnancies or during a high-risk pregnancy to ensure they are close to obstetrical care. Residents will also be encouraged to attend education sessions on basic infant care and nutrition. Read More... See also the Dominion Woman's Club donation.

INMED Partnerships for Children is expanding its partnership with the GE Foundation and launching a partnership with GE South Africa to help to bring nutritious lunches to children in need in by bringing a mobile kitchen and training to one particularly needy school.

And in the nick of time, too, for this South African school is getting ready with its first harvests from a newly established garden planted with the help of GE volunteers.

“Among the children who do attend school, many arrive hungry, and for most, their only significant meal of the day is the food they receive through the school lunch program,” she added. “Healthy foods are not only important for their nutrition, but also an incentive for them to be in school.”

Often, Zulu said, school lunches lack the nutritional value students need, and though there is an agricultural base in the area, many of the local subsistence farmers lack farming and business training to sustain food security and economic development.

The four schools selected for the program are: Napo Primary near Mediba Village; Malopang Primary near Jupiter Village; Rantsho Primary near Diana Village, and Matuma Combined near Bellingsgate Village. The schools were selected by King Mashashane of the tribal group of the same name in the Limpopo Province, based on those with the most need as part of his determination to improve resources to adequately feed the children. Read More...

When Coralis Fernandez discovered that what brought her the greatest satisfaction was helping families overcome their struggles, it didn’t take long for her to change careers.

She used to be an attorney in Venezuela practicing family law and then a manager for real estate firms, first in Florida for over a decade and then in Virginia where she moved with her husband about two years ago.

But something was missing.

She usually filled this void by volunteering at her churches in Florida and Virginia, working with low-income families to help them overcome their struggles any way she could. Sometimes, simply talking and listening to them was enough, but on other occasions she could do more, like connecting families to specific services that they needed.

Witnessing, and in some cases sharing, the experience of overcoming tremendous challenges with families, presented an overriding joy in her life. Read More...

Coralis Fernandez hands out gifts to families she works with at an INMED holiday party.

Franklin Jr.’s mother watched with one eye on him and another on her guests as the two year old, his long, curly black hair crowning a joyful and spirited smile, sprinted back and forth between his ball and SpongeBob on TV.

Sitting on the couch in her Lynwood apartment, Bianca is at the ready for her son to run into her arms to periodically hide from the strangers. She gives him a kiss on the head, asks him to go watch more of SpongeBob, and without skipping a beat resumes talking about her experience of being a teenage mom.

Today, things are much different for Bianca than they were two years ago when, at the age of 16, she fought with others, became pregnant and dropped out of high school. Ultimately, she returned and graduated from high school, and the simple fact that she is now surrounded by college applications and health care insurance forms sheds more than hints to just how far she has come in those two years.

Bianca and her son, Franklin Jr.