This has been a whirlwind year for Curamericas. Some highlights:

Last spring, Curamericas initiated a cell phone COVID education outreach project on a shoestring budget which grew to 500 bilingual volunteers reaching 10,000 families.  This is a 2 minute video of a public health/premedical student in Miami describing what happened during one of his calls as a volunteer for Curamericas:  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9i720p2RJM&authuser=0    

Also this spring, Curamericas working with Duke Health was awarded a grant directed towards the COVID pandemic.  Through that grant, Curamericas has reached an additional 10,000 families (total of 80,000 North Carolinians), targeting impoverished LatinX and black communities in 26 NC counties.  Curamericas is supervising 180 community health workers to provide financial support to prevent evictions, support for utilities and food, providing personal protective equipment and also advice for when to seek medical attention.  

A major setback  for Curamericas was the Ronald MacDonald House Charities (RMHC) annual grant for 10 years being paused for year 2021.  This is related  in part to COVID epidemic.  RMHC is  reassessing their priorities for future years. In spite of expecting to lose $500,000 in RMHC funding annaully, Curamericas and our partner projects will be making sufficient adjustments that our programs will continue moving forward.   

Good news for 2020: there was only 1 maternal death among 1400 deliveries between our two projects in Guatemala and Kenya this year.  Where we work in Guatemala, it was once known as the “Triangle of death” so high were maternal and infant deaths.  There is an old African saying:  When a mother dies, a world dies.  Maternal deaths devastate the family and jeopardize the health of the surviving children.  

More good news: Casa Maternas (birthing centers) in Guatemala increased from 3 to 10 in the past 5 years.  Also we opened 3 birthing centers in Kenya since beginning work there 2 years ago.  All birthing centers are staffed 24/7 with a nurse and an assistant.  Solar panels are being donated for our Guatemala and Kenya birthing centers as electricity is unreliable where we work.

Further good news is that as our projects mature, they become more self sustaining.  Our project in Bolivia begun in the early 1980s is completely independent financially from Curamericas today. The Guatemala project began in 2001, and despite their expansion, 67% of their costs are now covered locally and by state/national government.  And in 2 years,  20% of Kenya projects’ funding comes from local, state and national sources.

Also, Dr. Henry Perry, our founder, Senior Scientist at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, a paid advisor for the Gates Foundation, and he teaches an online Introductory course to 60,000 public health students worldwide. He has also published 3 books/more than 200 scientific articles, and yet he still remains actively engaged with Curamericas. Dr. Perry’s stature in international health is an indirect reflection as to how much Curamericas has impacted world health, despite our small size.

Not well known is that every dollar given to Curamericas is multiplied roughly 7-fold (and this is a conservative estimate) as our gifts are leveraged by attracting grants and other financial support. 

So a gift of $1,000 is effectively a $7,000 gift (and it is actually $14,000 as long as the dollar for dollar match remains available).  

Where else in the USA could your gift be so multiplied and have such an impact on the lives of others?