Sr. Lydia Mariette Soita works at Immaculate Heart Hospital Kereita, the only medical facility within 30 miles of her community in rural Kenya. There, many live in slums and have few clothes to wear in the cold climate. After the hospital ambulance was involved in a serious accident, it was no longer reliable and deemed unsafe for patient transport. Without this lifeline, Sr. Lydia’s community suffered, especially pregnant women who, without safe transport, walked barefoot for miles to the hospital, sometimes giving birth on the side of the road before arriving. In one tragic case, a mother suffering complications from delivering her baby required treatment at a larger hospital. With no ambulance to transport her, a taxi service was called that took too long to arrive. The young mother died before reaching the hospital.
Sr. Lydia knew that safe hospital transport could have saved the young mother’s life. “Access to timely care, especially for women in labor, can reduce maternal and neonatal mortality rates,” she said. So, she turned to SRW for help to purchase a new ambulance for the hospital.
SRW is currently working with its network of generous donors to fund the ambulance purchase, but this is far from the first vehicle request that’s arrived from a Sister in need. SRW has also funded vans and buses for health transport, anti-trafficking efforts, schools, and other humanitarian services across the world. “Many devastating problems in poor communities can be addressed through simple but impactful solutions like the purchase of a new vehicle,” SRW COO Kelly Mallon-Young says.
In another area of Kenya, a van purchased through SRW eliminated threats that young children faced from sexual predators on their long walks home from school. In the Philippines, SRW funding helped bring a bookmobile program to life that improved child literacy rates and provided anti-trafficking education to families in remote areas. And in Brazil, SRW recently funded the purchase of a vehicle for transporting the elderly to social services, so that family caretakers can continue schooling and avoid falling into poverty, drug abuse, and prostitution.
Sisters living and serving in these vulnerable communities around the world understand the root causes of problems they face better than anyone else. And, with something as simple as a new vehicle, communities experience an immediate, lifesaving impact when they can access the essential care and services that everyone deserves. Thanks to vital support from donors, SRW continues to empower Sisters everywhere to take action and make bottom-up systems change like this possible.
As Easter approaches, we reach out with a humble request to help provide food for the children in our orphanage school so they can celebrate this sacred season with joy and nourishment. In the poorest and most neglected regions of the world, having enough food can mean the difference between life and death. For the […]
Uganda is among the poorest in the world and continues to face severe challenges, including natural disasters and rebel attacks from groups based in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). These crises have left our communities in desperate need of assistance. Devastating Floods and Cholera Outbreak Last year, severe flooding in Kabale submerged villages and […]
