Since February, Friends took action to provide our teams and programs in Venezuela with all sort of cleaning, disinfecting and germicidal supplies, together with all the needed PPE. Thanks to grants from IRC (International Rescue Committee) and Anthony R. Abraham Foundation, our partnership with International Aid, and certainly the donations from many of you through GlobalGiving, we were able to implement and strengthen our Covid-19 Response Plan (see attached) by even adding 2 ventilators!
Today, in many countries, Covid-19 continues challenging health systems, disrupting economies, and certainly increasing the number of both new cases and deaths. In early June, Venezuela was reporting +50 new cases per day, with peaks of +100 cases, for a total of 2,087 cases and 20 deaths. Today, there are +10,000 cases, +300 new daily cases, new peaks of +400 cases per day, and at least 100 deaths. Yet rights groups claim real numbers are much higher than those reported.
As of June, Friends has provided with:
As for our ongoing programs, Covid-19 prevented us from executing and replicating major drives that in 2019 brought us +$30K worth of donations, from diapers, to baby formulas, to nutritional supplements and more. Yet, we continued having the support of great partners such Victus' Clinical & Nutritional products, with critical items such as Enterex, pediatric & youth catheters, dressings, among many others; Chamos Foundation, with an additional donation of vitamins Alvityl Vitality for children +6 years old; Celebrating Childhood once again donated hundreds of Elephantitos' beautiful shoes and dresses for children, among other partners.
But once again, your contributions have made possible that thousands of health workers, little patients and their family members receive basic but highly needed supplies such as formulas, nutritional supplements, etc. Here other indicators as of June from Friends:
Friends will continue protecting his teams, patients, and hospital staff and even bringing hope in the middle of the humanitarian crisis and the breakdown of the health system that Venezuela is experiencing. We thank you for your continuing support with both our ongoing programs and our Covid-19 Response Plan.
Once again, thank you!
Paolo
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Curious about how we finished 2019?
We just released our 2019 Annual Report which includes in great detail all the challenges, accomplishments, and overall financial and statistical results.
Of course, our greatest accomplishments are both the smiles you put on thousands of children and families under vulnerable, underprivileged conditions, and the lives we saved thanks to your continuos support.
Needless to say the positive impact on the doctors, caregivers and overall hospital staff at the Jorge Lizarrage Pediatric Hospital. Like our children, they know they can count on us to provide the best medical attention.
We still have so much to do, but together we can continue bringing hope, love and support to all those newborns, infants, school-age children, families, teachers, hospital staff and everyone under our programs.
Thank you once again for trusting on our work!
PS. Please see below our 2019 Annual Report as an attachment.
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4Q 2019 Report & Preview of 2019 Results
In 2019 we met Jessuany (picture above) and her smile and fighting spirit against cancer gave us the strenght to have a strong end of the year. She is our hero, like many other children, doctors and caregivers close to "Friends".
The 4Q was very important as we were able to allocate our funds and resources to purchase, at a very reduced cost, critical items such as formulas, nutritional supplements and others though International Aid. We also focused on categories that needed an extra push or we just took advantage of very important donations of multivitamins from Europe.
This means a good start of 2020 in very critical categories for our children in Venezuela and for our donors, the opportunity to once again see the way we maximize their monetary contributions. For instance, instead of buying a 8-oz bottle of pediasure at market value ($2), we were able to buy a very large quantity at $0.23 per bottle! This nutritional supplement is critical for both malnourished children and our little patients fighting cancer.
As you know, we are fighting malnourishment, food scarcity, and so much more, reason why these types of purchases and the funds needed can be a major break point in terms of the number of children we can assist and the quality of our care for each child. The number of shipments, their volume, and the quantity of the items we were able to ship in the last quarter and along the year are unprecedented!
Closing 2019, it was clear we tripled the number of shipments and most likely 5X more volume than in 2018. As donations and our operations, logistics and inventory grew, both in Miami and Venezuela, we had to be more efficient and effective in our communications, procedures, controls, reports, deliveries, and overall on the way we worked. As we accomplished all this, we were also able to collect and ship toys and special treats for Christmas! What a end of the year!
As we are about to finish and share our 2019 Annual Report, we are glad to announce that, despite the challenges we all faced, 11,948 children (+83%) benefited from the Pediatric Hospital Jorge Lizarraga and 1,810 children & teachers (2X vs 2018) under Alimentando Futuros received our daily meal program as an incentive to return and/or stay at school.
Here is a summary of the shipments and supplies received by our team at the Jorge Lizarraga Pediatric Hospital in Venezuela, by the end of 2019 (in Volume):
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Third Quarter Highlights - 2019
Thanks to Sortly, our real-time Inventory Management System that allows us to control stock levels in Miami and Venezuela together with the inventory on transit, we were able to focus on Vitamins and Nutritional & Clinical Supplements this last 3Q, both contributing with 79% of total units shipped. This is +15,000 units of these 2 categories.
Medicines and Surgical & Medical categories added 20%, with +3,500 units. As we monitor our inventories, we ensure no category is left behind whether through donations or purchases. Today, our children and staff at Jorge Lizarraga Pediatric Hospital have been fortunate to receive +37,000 units of surgical & medical supplies, +22,000 units of diapers, +16,000 supplements, 3,000 units of medicines, and thousands more of other items.
YTD Third Quarter Highlights - 2019
In our previous report from 1st Semester, we highlighted the great support we had from so many individual donors, media, companies, and other organizations that allowed us to build good inventory levels, and as consequence, ensure large monthly shipments of several in-kind donations and items we were able to buy with individual monetary donations and grants.
Today, we can still see the impact of such a strong start of the year. Our work on operations, inventory management and constant communication with our teams in Venezuela also paid off and we have been able to respond to most critical categories. Of course, the crisis and needs still surpasses our resources and it remains a major challenge, for instance, to raise funds for very specialized, expensive items under Surgical & Medical Equipment that could not be accesible unless we have large monetary donations or grants.
Unfortunately, in general, it is still not enough no matter what we do, because Venezuela is still sbmerged in a “complex humanitarian emergency” as defined by United Nations.
Here is a summary of the shipments and supplies received in Venezuela until end of Sept (in Volume):
23 Shipments
+37,000 units of Surgical & Medical from +170 different items.
+22,000 diapers
+16,000 supplements
+3,000 medicines, from +80 different types of medicines (general conditions and specific treatments)
+1,900 formulas
+1,800 botteles of vitamins
+1,400 compotes
+1,000 canned/packed food.
and many more other items
Links:
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