Physical Health Guatemala Project #54825

Healthy Mothers Program

by Mayanza, Inc.

Project Report | Nov 4, 2022
Updates from the Healthy Mothers Program

By Jami Smith | Co-founder and CEO

Exercise class for mothers

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.

Weekly health class at Panul

Our team provided health screening in July

Sexual health and reproduction class

Enrichment for the children of the women

Links:

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Jul 8, 2022
Updates from our Healthy Mothers Programs

By Jami Smith | CEO

Isa is a new member of our team!

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.

Juanita talks to the mothers about mental health.

Food for families from the Garden Project!

New exercise clothes for the mothers.

Program works on Sustainable Development Goal #3.

Links:

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Mar 11, 2022
Healthy Mothers Make Healthy Communities

By Jami Smith | Co-founder and CEO

Our proud group of graduating mothers!

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.

All women in the new group had a health screening.

The first group at Panul school!

Group exercise classes for the women.

Exercise is fun and important for good health.

The children of the women learn about health too.

Links:

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

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