Healthy Mothers Program

Hello from the Team at Mayanza!  We have been busy with our two Healthy Mothers Programs.  This year, in March, we graduated two groups of women from the communities of Tzanchaj and Panul.  We also enrolled two new groups from the communitites of Tzanchaj and Chu'ul. In March, we also collected a needs assessment and program evaluation from the new and graduating groups that will inform our future programs to ensure that the information that we provide is relevant, important and useful to the mothers.

The program enrolls vulnerable women from the school communities that we work with.  Each week, the women participate in an education session and exercise class.  The topics range from nutrition, hygiene, disease prevention, how to safely exercise, to stress management and women's empowerment.  Each month, there is a guest speaker from the local community who showcases health education topics in a culturally competent manner.  The women are provided with eggs, vegetables and a nutritious drink to help meet the nutritional needs of their families.  

We appreciate all the help that you have given Mayanza in the past, and please know that we rely on donations from people like you to support our work.  Please consider making an extra mid-year donation to help the mothers of Santiago learn more about health to improve the health of their community.  

2023 is off to a great start for Mayanza.  With the new year, comes our new Healthy Mothers groups.  This year we continue with a group from the rural community of Tzanchaj and have added the inaugural class from the community of Chu'ul.  We have recruited 12 women from each community to become empowered about how to improve their health through education about nutrition, disease prevention, stress management and weekly exercise classes.  

Since most women don't have exercise clothing or shoes, we took the women on a shopping spree where they each were given a shirt, pants, sports bra, socks and sneakers.  Now they are ready to exercise together! 

In addition to the weekly education and exercise classes, we have a monthly speaker series with local experts in nutrition, mental health and other topics who teach in the local Maya language in a culturally competent manner.  Already this year we have had some guest speakers, including Vilma, a Reproductive Health Educator, who talked about menstruation and sexual health and Amalia, from Tinta Maya, who taught the women about natural medicine and medicinal herbs in their environment.  

More updates to come as we move further into 2023.  Thank you for your support of this program!  We could not provide the education and resource to these women without your financial support.

As we approach the end of the year, we are also approaching the end of the Healthy Mothers program for 2022.  We are proud of the accomplishments of these women over the past year.

• 20 women completed the program - 10 from the community of Tzanchaj and 10 from Panul.
• Weekly education sessions with our health educators on a variety of health topics such as stress management, reproductive health, hygiene, nutrition, exercise and disease prevention.  We also had guest speakers who are experts from the community including a psychologist, sexual health educator, expert on local plants for medicinal use and a chef.
• Weekly group exercise sessions with our exercise trainers.
• Biannual health screenings from the Mayanza team, including screening for diabetes, anemia and monitoring body indices.
• Enrichment for the children of the mothers in the program: Each week, while the mothers learn and exercise, their children receive enrichment activities including math, reading, art, music and creative play from a certified teacher.  This allows the mothers to focus on themselves and the children to benefit from this time with a teacher.

We look forward to celebrating their accomplishments with a ceremony and awarding their certificate of completion when the Mayanza leadership team returns in March.

If you would like to help us continue this important work, please make a donation today. As the holidays approach, please visit our shop to purchase a unique, handcrafted gift that helps to support the women of our programs.

Links:

• Visit our site to learn more!
• Support the work of the mothers in this community - Shop here!

We are just about half way through our Healthy Mothers Programs in 2022 and we have lots of news to share with you!  

• We are excited to welcome a new health educator who has joined our team, Isa Ajtujal.  Isa will spend time with the children of the mothers in the program, teaching them about health topics and playing educational games.  This allows the mothers to focus on their education and exercise classes without worrying about their children.
• Each month, we have a guest speaker from the community speak to the women.  This month we had Juanita Chiviliu, a licensed psychologist from Sanitago, speak to the women about mental health and ways to cope with stress in their daily lives.  Another recent guest was Chef Gregioro, who taught the women how to cook with healthy foods and then shared a delicious, healthy meal with the mothers.
• Our Garden Project team work year round to plant, cultivate and harvest healthy food for the families of this group.  The women participate in the planting and maintenance of the gardens to learn life long skills and then enjoy the bountiful harvest.
• Since we target the most vulnerable women in the community for this project, most do not have appropriate shoes, clothing or undergarments for exercise.  We provided each women with a pair of sneakers, exercise clothing, socks and a sports bra.  Being prepared with comfortable clothes for exercise goes a long way toward engagment and enjoyment of exercise!

The Healthy Mothers program works to meet the UN Sustainable Development Goal #3 of Good Health and Well-being.  We hope that you will continue to support our work in Santiago.  Next week begins our July Donation Campaign and we need  your support to continue this important work.  

Please follow us on social media to learn more about the impact of our work with vulnerable mothers and families of Santiago.

Links:

• Health Mothers Program Video
• Check out our website to learn more!

We have returned from our February trip to Santiago and wanted to share some updates with you.  First, we had a graduation celebration for the 10 women who completed our program.  During the ceremony, women in the class shared what they had learned and how the program impacted their family.  Each woman received a certifcation of completion and we all shared a healthy meal together.  It was a beautiful event that recognized the hard work of each of the women.

Despite completing the program, this group of women is continuing to exercise together each week.  This is remarkable in a community where this type of formal exercise is almost non-existent.  We are so proud of their committment to their health!

After the graduation, we recruited two new groups of women to start in our Healthy Mothers Program.  One group is from the community of Tzanchaj and the other is from the community surrounding one of our partner schools, Panul.  We collected baseline health information and screening measurements to help the women to see improvement with their health over time.  Each week, the women will have an hour of health education and an hour of group exercise classes.  Some of the topics that will be taugh include hygiene, nutrition, healthy preparation of local foods, stress management, sexual health and reproduction and women's empowerment.

During the classes, our health educators provide a stimulating lesson on health education topics to the children of the women in the program.  This provides the children the opportunity to learn something new and allows the mothers to focus on their own learning during class.

More exciting news... In addition to expanding the numbers of the women that we will reach through this program, we have provided employment opportunities to three of our previous students.  Two of the women have become group exercise instructors and another is a Healthy Mothers program facilitator.  We are so proud to provide opportunities for these women to support their families and make their communities healthier.

Thank you for your support of this program!  We could not do this work without your generous support of our programs.  

Links:

• Support our online shop - we have coffee fresh from Santiago!