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Humanitarian Aid5 min read

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How shipping and handling can rescue moms and babies

Emily Towns
May 06, 2019

When a woman living in a remote, poverty-stricken village is pregnant, she is on her own.

Hospitals are too far away and too expensive. Local clinics can’t offer much in the way of medication or treatment because they are underequipped. So, when something goes wrong, a woman is left with two terrible choices: do nothing and risk losing the baby or her own life … or make a long journey to a hospital she cannot afford.

It’s an impossible choice, and one that no woman should have to make. Yet every day, women living in poor communities around the world face this decision.

We have many of the supplies that maternity clinics and other health facilities need sitting in our warehouse right now thanks to generous corporate donations and grants. But we need YOUR help to ship them.

Every $1 you give ships $33 worth of medical aid, nutritious food, and more to communities in need. That means your gift multiplies 33X!

What’s the problem?

Eve is a pastor’s wife and a leader in her community in rural Uganda. She feels grateful that her village has a clinic at all — many of the surrounding villages do not — but she is still very concerned for the health of expectant mothers who come to the clinic. It is poorly stocked and lacks the necessary tools to allow doctors and nurses to adequately treat their patients.

“Small clinics don’t usually have equipment,” Eve said. “When you go there, they check you and then tell you to go to Kampala. But we don’t have money to go there.”

There is a reason that countries with high levels of poverty consistently have the highest maternal mortality rates in the world.

 It can be easy for us to say, “Just pay the fee! Travel to the specialized hospital and get the help you need.” But if a woman in Uganda spends what little money she has, her family is doomed. They will no longer be able to afford any food they have been buying.

“Many women are dying,” Eve said, “and others are going through terrible experiences due to walking long distances to go to a maternity clinic. We find that pregnant women are not going to clinics because it is very far away from where they are staying.”

In Uganda, it isn’t just women who are suffering from a lack of available medical equipment and supplies — it’s also the children. Children are especially vulnerable to diseases like measles, malaria, polio, typhoid, and intestinal worms.

If local clinics don’t have the medicine and equipment to combat these easily treatable illnesses, they can become fatal. That means even if a child survives being born without proper care, he still may not live to adulthood.

“There isn’t enough”

Hospitals and clinics in developing nations are terribly understocked and understaffed, but it’s not for lack of trying. Governments do their best to fund medical clinics like the one in Eve’s community. But when the country as a whole is struggling financially, these remote facilities often fall through the cracks.

Israel is a district governor in Uganda who is concerned about the health of the people he serves. His district is fortunate enough to have a hospital, but due to budgetary constraints, almost nothing in the hospital has been updated since opening day.

“This hospital was constructed in 1969 and commissioned in 1971,” Israel said. “The equipment that was installed during the commissioning has grown old. There isn’t enough, and what is there is too old to use. It is tough to work on the patients.”

But people keep coming to the hospital because it is the only option they have.

“Because of a big influx, some patients are forced to go back [home] because there are no spaces,” Israel said. “Others are forced to sleep on the ground. So, you find in this condition, there’s no comfort.”

It’s more than just a lack of comfort. Israel shared that doctors at the hospital are having an increasingly difficult time accurately diagnosing patients. The outdated equipment doesn’t provide a full picture of the problem, so many don’t receive the treatment they need.

How you can help

Our warehouse is full of donated medical equipment, hygiene kits, and other items that are ready to be sent to communities like Eve’s and Israel’s. But as you know, shipping isn’t free … especially to remote, international villages!

Just like you have to pay shipping and handling fees when you order a package online, we have to pay shipping and handling to send these lifesaving relief to the people who need them most.

It may not seem very glamorous, but your gift to help ship a container full of medical supplies and more will absolutely help save lives.

And your gift multiplies 33X!

That means your $30 will actually become $990 worth of supplies to help expectant mothers, sick children, and other people in need.

You won’t just be making a physical impact, either. You’ll also be making a spiritual impact. Many of these shipments will be distributed by people like Eve and her husband. As Christians and leaders in their community, they are in the perfect position to share the Gospel as they distribute the critical aid you helped provide.

So for just $30, you will help rescue people — and give them a hope for the future.

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