Today the Vitamin Angels staff got the privilege of meeting Denny and Paula Lofstrom, two of three founders of International Health Partners, one of our grantees of our Thrive to Five program in Tanzania. Paula and Denny have a clear passion for the people of Tanzania. Paula is a born storyteller with a sense of humor and natural aptitude for marketing. Denny is an MD with a masters in tropical medicine.
They presented Vitamin Angels with a beautiful elephant grass basket, a gift from an expert Tanzanian basket maker, Kezia, who learned to make the baskets using her grandmother's technique. Kezia had lost her husband when he died suddenly, and without warning, from an ulcer, leaving her with four children, the youngest only 18 months old. Kezia's sister Nuru is also a single mother; her husband had left her to take care of their three children. The women's seven children were thin and starving.
Kezia and Nuru's children have all benefited from the vitamins provided by Vitamin Angels. Kezia and her sister went on to start a school, and they now have ten pupils. Paula says, of the school, "You see how the work spreads out. It's not just a pill in someone's. Her point is that when children get the nutrients they need, not only do they become healthier, but families can start to break out of the cycle of poverty.
International Health Partners began distributing Vitamin Angels's prenatal vitamins in 2009. Paula explained the two fold effect of the distribution. One effect is that when women are given prenatal vitamins, they help them build and maintain strong health during their pregnancy. The second is that women are more apt to come in for regular prenatal care when they are given a tangible take-away from a visit. When women return to receive prenatal vitamins, irregularities or declines in patient health are much more likely to be noticed. Prenatal vitamins provide an enticement needed to monitor the women during their pregnancy.
Paula also explained that women die in childbirth first and foremost because they cannot get to a hospital. Taxi service in Mwanza (where IHP is based), stops at 9 pm. If a woman goes into a difficult labor, she has no way of reaching medical care. Sometimes, even when a woman is able get to a public hospital, they are overcapacity and unsafe or unsterile. International Health Partners is working to develop their Mwanza health complex in Mwanza into a hospital as well as build a pediatric hospital in Dar es Salaam-Bagamayo. This will include rooms for women with high risk pregnancies; that way they'll be right on site if complications begin.
In 2010, IHP also began distributing children's multivitamins provided by Vitamin Angels. Paula explained that the diet of a Tanzanian child consists primarily of maize or rice porridge. If they make it past childbirth (140 babies die each day), the statistics are still grim: 50,000 children die each year within the first few months of their lives. Children encounter health problems due to their limited diet. Without the proper nutritional base, and with the insidiousness of malaria, children's immune systems are not well-equipped to handle the threat of infection or disease. The vitamins provided by Vitamin Angels will help children establish the nutritional foundation needed for proper health and development.
It was a pleasure to meet Paula and Denny and hear their perspectives on the mothers and children being reached in Tanzania, and the role vitamin Angels is playing in helping them live healthy lives. Vitamin Angels is proud to partner with International Health Partners.
A smiling Kezia
Kezia weaves an elephant grass basket
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