By Annie Keel | Development Coordinator
WINGS continues to focus our activities on Alta Verapaz, a region of Guatemala with exceptionally high levels of poverty, child malnutrition and maternal mortality. In 2013 alone, thousands of women and families have been supported with accurate and empowering information on family planning and access to a range of contraceptive methods. However, every day we are reminded of the great and ongoing need for our services, as Maria's story demonstrates:
"My husband and I were happy that the WINGS clinic was coming and I would be able to get the little sticks [sub-dermal hormonal implant] put in my arm – we had talked before about not having more children but until now we didn’t know where to go to get the medicine. I have five children living. Two months ago my youngest child died; while I was pregnant, I fell out of a pickup truck that was still moving and was dragged along the road. I went into labor and they rushed me to hospital, but the baby was too small and he didn’t make it. I almost died as well because the birth was very difficult. I asked the hospital to operate on me so that I wouldn’t have more children, but they said that I would have to buy some of the supplies for the operation, and I didn’t have enough money."
"Today WINGS did a pregnancy test and it was positive – I am really, really sad. I don’t want to have any more children and I don’t know what to do. It isn’t that I won’t love the baby, but the problem is that we are very poor – my husband is an agricultural laborer and I feel very sorry for him because he has to work from dawn until dusk for very little money. The money he makes doesn’t go far and everything is getting more expensive. Our children are still very young and we did not want to have another baby, but we will keep struggling on. I hope to God that WINGS returns so that I can get the little sticks put in my arm and take care of myself after having the baby. I can’t have any more children - I feel very ill and I am scared of dying and leaving my young children without a mother. There are many more women like me who need these medicines so that they don’t keep getting pregnant."
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By Jessica Pic | Communications Coordinator
By Jessica Surma | Communications Coordinator
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