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Monday, June 11, 2012

Revitalization of the Casa Materna Part I: The Idea



Apologies to all for not posting for the last six months!  I have been very busy since December – made two trips home to California, traveled to parts of Northern Nicaragua, and completed a project at the Casa Materna in my site, Boaco.  Lots of ammunition for future posts!  Today (and in the next few posts) I am going to start with the Casa Materna project because it took over my life for a while:


As I have previously mentioned, a Casa Materna is a temporary refuge for underprivileged rural pregnant women who do not have immediate access to health care.  Because these women choose to have the child at home with a midwife, they risk maternal and or child deaths due to infections, hemorrhages, or high blood pressure.  Women who stay at the Casa Materna two to four weeks before they are expecting decrease risk of complications because they have direct access to health care.  Casas Maternas have been established in many urban areas of Nicaragua in an effort to decrease the incidence of maternal and child mortalities.


There is not much to do in the Casa Materna, Boaco.  The women receive daily medical check-ups, they bathe, cook, eat, clean, wash clothes, and then sit and watch TV.  This is where I volunteer most of my time.  I offer health education, demonstrate crafts such as jewelry-making, and spend time with the women as they patiently wait to go into labor.  They are offered a very limited diet – beans, rice, oil, cream, powdered milk, and eggs.  Because the women are from poorer rural areas, they usually do not have enough money to supplement their meals with meats, fruits, or vegetables.


In December I told my site-mate Kelli (Small Business Volunteer) that I had been interested in making a vegetable garden at the Casa Materna because there was a huge space behind the building that was not being used.  There was also a dilapidated structure (which we later found out was used for water storage) that I dreamed could one day be a place where the women could exercise.  Kelli without hesitation encouraged me to move forward with the project.  She said she wanted to be involved, got Greg (Environment volunteer) on board, and we presented the idea to Boaco’s Ministry of Health!  Below are "before pictures" of the space.


More to come this week. . .







A big thank you to those who donated clothes, blankets, crafts materials, and other gifts to the Casa Materna in January:


Marianne Malenk
Wendy, Jerry, and Grant Thompson, and Penny Wheeler
Theresa and Ginger Lua
Jennifer Solomon
Leigh Ann Fraley
Anna Compton

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