Saving lives in Costa Rica

She is Colleen Mitchell, the baby that she has in her arms is only few days old, or perhaps just few hours, he’s the son of a Costa Rican ethnic woman from the indigenous group Cabecar, one of the most representative ethnic groups in Costa Rica.

I met Colleen this year in April in our first doula’s training class. Doula is a term for women that assist other women during the childbirth process: before, during the labor and after the child is born, we took those classes in San Jose. Since the moment I met her I felt a deep admiration for her, not only for her presentation but also for her abundant social service and her profound human quality, that awe I started feeling just continued to grow along the days we shared.

Gregory Mitchell © Solkes

Colleen, her husband and her five male children are a missionary catholic family that left their home in Louisiana in January 2011, and they settled in Turrialba, near Cartago Province in Costa Rica. Their objective has always been to help the most vulnerable ones.

The place and the problem

In the natural reserve in the mountains over Chirripo district in Turrialba, there is the biggest Cabercar concentration, far away from any kind of civilization, living in the mountains, divided in 60 different villages along and across all this territory. The Cabecar have safeguarded all their traditions and they maintain all their customs and routines, they keep their selves away from the entire modernity bustle. How ever, this lifestyle implies some problems, one of those that as they live in the middle of nowhere, in the mountains, they don´t have access to medical services therefore they can´t improve their life conditions and avoid unnecessary looses.

Colleen Mitchell © Solkes

One of the biggest problems they have is the Cabecar women’s pregnancy. Living so far and with so much access difficulties is kind of impossible to access to prenatal cares, if they have any inconvenience during their pregnancy or if the birth day is coming, even though if the labor has begun. The woman must walk for long hours even in some cases they have to walk for two whole days to reach the nearest hospital.

There are some cases of women who give birth in the middle of the road, some others arrive to the hospital but they are send back home and wait because the labor hasn’t start, they have to walk down again for hours, across unsuitable roads.

Likewise, women with their newborns have to walk their way back and when they arrive, they observe that their baby has some problem and they need to go back. There are cases of women who need to leave the baby in the intensive care unit for some days and they don’t have a place where to sleep, eat or shower at the hospital. For all that reasons the Cabecar population has presented infant and maternal almost five times higher than the rest of Costa Rica´s population.

Gregory Mitchell © Solkes

Creating the St. Francis Emmaus Center

As a result of this precarious situation the Mitchells decided to create the St. Francis Emmaus Center or Centro San Francisco Emaus in Spanish, as part of the projects they managed through their NGO St. Bryce Missions. Here they receive the Cabecar mothers to be, even weeks before and after the childbirth.

They also attend the newborns providing all of them a safe, comfortable and warm environment.

The birth center is equipped to receive up to 10 mothers with their babies and then not only offer them stay and sustention but also they give them useful workshops for improving their quality of life and the children’s life conditions such as:

* Prenatal care and nutrition.

* Preparation for the labor.

* Early childhood development.

* Comprehension about fertility and reproductive cycles.

In 2014, The Mitchells received great news, for that year, according to statistics; the rates of infant mortality among the Cabecar population have decreased significantly, a 50%. They were not only giving shelter and support to those pregnant women but they were also saving lots of lives literally speaking. The Dr. Carmen Rodriguez Picado, medical director of the health services in Turrialba Jimenez certified it on a letter they received.

Besides the obvious, the beautiful and valuable work they do in this center, if something has touched and motivated myself is the love that Colleen professes for what she does, for her women as she call them.

Doing something for those in need

Colleen inspires us to help, to do something for those in need. She is a passionate women in her labor who´s always looking for new ways to improve the services she provide, how to have a truthful impact in a community that is not easy to have for their conditions. How to spread all the love that she has with her all around her?

Chesea Timmons © Solkes

That’s why she´s always searching for new ways and innovate strategies and knowledge that could help her in her mission and I can assure that she puts into practice each and every lesson from the doula training, with the multiple women guests from her shelter.

I think that we really have much to learn from people like her and her family. Maybe we can’t sponsor a shelter or dedicate ourselves full time to volunteering and charity, but we always can do something for someone. We can always share this kind of testimonies and initiatives. This will help us, for sure, to build a better future and kind world for all of us. Thanks to Colleen and all her people for helping them all and for always inspiring us.

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