Valley de San Juan, Nicaragua

Candida has delivered over 500 babies in her 30 years as a midwife. Each year, she assists in the birth of approximately 20 to 30 women in the small village of Valley de San Juan. With a nod of pride, she tells us that she knew being a midwife was her calling and received training from the Ministry of Health. It is clear that she loves this work. The community is like an extension of her own family that just continues to grow.

With eight children of her own, and having assisted with so many births, Candida is well qualified to report on the changes she has seen result from the introduction of programs by The Rainbow Network, including the distribution of prenatal vitamins to new and expecting mothers in the village. When she began her work there were a lot of health problems, she tells us, now the mothers seem healthier and stronger; a change she attributes to the introduction of prenatal vitamins.

Rainbow Network’s presence has made a big impact on health, hygiene and quality of life in the community. Not only have the prenatal vitamins improved the health of mothers and their newborn babies, but there is now a feeding center where children who would otherwise not have enough to eat (or access to proper nutrition – some resorted to eating rodents out of desperation, she tells us) can come for a balanced meal. Candida says that when she goes for a 40-day check up on her newborn patients she encourages the families to visit the health center in order to take advantage of the resource and learn about proper nutrition.

The folks at Rainbow Network also provided Candida seeds to start a garden which is now bursting with tomatoes, carrots, peppers and squash – all packed with vitamins! She takes great pride in the garden, explaining that she gets up every morning at 4 a.m. to fetch water from the well. The limit per family on well water requires careful budgeting of the resource and her greatest concern now is that the electricity which drives the well will go out.

Vitamin Angels is currently reaching 2,900 mothers with prenatal vitamins in Nicaragua, as well as 606,750 children under 5 and 270,000 mothers with vitamin A through our partners The Rainbow Network and Amigos for Christ. Learn more about our trip to Nicaragua >>

Our thanks to Sasha Veregin from Univera for capturing this story.