Every day more than 20, 000 children under 5 die from preventable causes including diarrhea, respiratory diseases, malnutrition, measles, and avoidable newborn death. Every year 500, 000 women die from causes related to pregnancy and childbirth.

Global Pediatric Alliance (GPA) works in Latin America to reduce preventable maternal and infant death and improve the quality of life for women and children. GPA seeks to promote grassroots empowerment and improve child and maternal health by providing educational, technical, and financial support for community-based health projects in Latin America. GPA’s evolution has been guided by its commitment to empowerment, cost-effectiveness, and sustainability. With this focus, GPA develops methods to help improve the lives of women and children in Latin America.

The Abundance Foundation has partnered with GPA in both of their main program areas – Midwife Training and Community Small Grants – by supporting staffing to enable the successful implementation and evaluation of community-based programs to improve maternal and child healthcare. The Abundance Foundation supported the evaluation component of a regional needs assessment project in Chiapas, Mexico, to document the maternal healthcare landscape among indigenous communities of Los Altos de Chiapas. The findings will be used to design a training intervention for traditional birth attendants, involving the participation of multiple levels of community stakeholders and resulting in better health care for indigenous mothers and infants.

The Abundance Foundation also provides support for GPA’s Small Grants Program, increasing the organization’s ability to identify community groups with the knowledge, motivation, and commitment to implement their own solutions to health problems that plague their communities – such as childbirth-related death, water-borne diseases, and malnutrition – but that lack the resources to do so. The Small Grants Program Director works closely with groups to design, implement, and evaluate projects funded by GPA, with the goal of promoting sustainability and self-sufficiency. Since the position was created in 2012 with Abundance Foundation support, GPA has awarded 7 Small Grants in Mexico and Guatemala, impacting dozens of communities and thousands of individuals.

For more info, please watch the short video below or visit GPA’s website.