Family Planning for Guatemalans Living in Poverty

Dear Friend,

WINGS is excited to have been invited to participate in GlobalGiving’s last matching challenge of the year.  This is the perfect opportunity to make your generous donation go further in support of WINGS’ efforts to provide Guatemalan women, men and youth with access to family planning education and services.

Here’s how it works: for every donation that you make to our family planning project, http://www.globalgiving.org/projects/family-planning-for-guatemalans-living-in-poverty/, between TODAY and October 21^st, GlobalGiving will match your donation by 30, 40 or 50% - the larger the donation the greater the matching amount!  If we raise the most donations we are eligible for a bonus award of $1,000.

With the highest birthrate in all of Latin America and the Caribbean, the importance of providing women, men and youth in Guatemala with access to family planning education and services is as pertinent as ever.  Nearly 1/3 of all pregnancies in Guatemala are unplanned and 1/2 of all women in Guatemala have a child by the age of 20.  The result is that 1 in every 2 children in Guatemala suffers from chronic malnutrition and every year thousands of Guatemalan women die from unsafe abortions or birth-related complications.  Such tragedies are completely avoidable. Indeed, its costs as little as $7 to provide a woman with a year’s worth of birth control pills.

For nearly ten years WINGS has been at the forefront of improving access to family planning education and services to women, men and youth in Guatemala.  Working in low-income, rural and indigenous communities, WINGS provides family planning information through educational talks and financially subsidizes family planning methods for those most in need.  WINGS also trains community family planning promoters who act as resource individuals, providing both information and a range of affordable contraceptive methods in very rural areas.  In 2009 alone WINGS reached 14,903 people through educational talks and provided 23,171 temporary methods.     

You can help ensure that WINGS continues to provide these critical services TODAY by participating in GlobalGivings’ Give More, Get More Challenge and by sharing this message with your friends. A donation of just $50 will be matched at 30% and provide 9 women with one-year’s worth of protection from unwanted pregnancies.

Thank you for supporting WINGS and for helping to improve the lives of women in Guatemala.

Sincerely,

The WINGS Team

P.S.  To see where WINGS ranks in the competition, click here.

Links:

• WINGS website
• WINGS Blog

WINGS’ founder, Sue Patterson, recently visited the home of Mariela, a former WINGS beneficiary who chose to have a tubal ligation a few years ago. Here is what Sue learned about Mariela during her visit:

Together with her two daughters aged 7 and 9, Mariela lives in a house made out of cornstalks and cardboard, which is precariously placed on a muddy mountainside. Her house was severely damaged during tropical storm Agatha last May, but has since been rebuilt with more cornstalks and cardboard. Mariela and her mother make and sell stuffed peppers, earning between the two of them about $6 dollars a day. Given the adversity she faces, when Mariela lost her third child to meningitis four years ago she decided to have a tubal ligation. While her family opposed the operation, Mariela decided for herself that she did not want to have any more children and went ahead with the procedure. Not having to care for any more young children has been very liberating for Mariela, who is currently enrolled in night school where she is studying the 7th grade. She now has aspirations to become a psychologist, so she can help others who have gone through difficult times. While Mariela’s situation is still precarious, she is now able to focus on improving the situation for herself and her two surviving daughters. As the story of Mariela highlights, the opportunity to limit one’s family size can change the course of entire families, enabling them to direct precious and scare resources to improve their lives and that of their existing children. Thanks to your generous support, more families in Guatemala will have access to essential family planning services that make a real difference in their lives.

Sincerely,

The WINGS Team