Helping Hands: Addressing Immediate Needs of Women & Families in Latin America, the Caribbean & Africa
Throughout Latin America, the Caribbean, and Africa, women and children often lack resources to meet their basic needs. MADRE's Helping Hands Campaign provides material necessities for these women so that they can face the immediate crises in their communities and move on to challenge the structures that deny them their basic rights. Grounded in the concrete work of collecting crayons, books, powdered milk, medical equipment, and art supplies, Helping Hands also offers ways for people in the US to think about their own lives in a political context and to join together to demand alternatives to destructive policies.
Since the Helping Hands campaign began in 2000, MADRE has sent more than $900,000 worth of donations to our sister organizations in Colombia, Cuba, Guatemala, Kenya, Mexico, and Nicaragua. In each of these countries, US foreign policy is spreading poverty while destroying social networks and services. For example:
- In Colombia, US-supported paramilitary forces are responsible for 75% of the country's human rights violations, including about 3,500 killings each year and the displacement of more than two million people.
- In Cuba, the longstanding US embargo means a scarcity of life-saving medicines and health supplies.
- In Guatemala, maquilas (sweatshops) reap millions for international corporations while endangering the health of the women who work in them.
- In southern Mexico, tens of thousands of Indigenous Peoples have been displaced from their land and subjected to military violence by troops that are trained and funded by the US.
- And in Nicaragua, where the August 2001 drought caused farmers on the North Caribbean Coast to lose almost 100 percent of their corn crop, people face the additional burden of drastically reduced social services due to structural adjustment policies imposed by the US-influenced International Monetary Fund and World Bank.
- In Kenya, millions of people are living with HIV/AIDS, yet the US has blocked the sale of affordable generic medicine to bolster already-huge profits of US pharmaceutical companies
Women, who are primarily responsible for maintaining their families and households, must intensify their work in the face of these destructive US policies. MADRE partners closely with our sister organizations to ensure that the aid we send reaches the women and families who need them most.
Past Helping Hands shipments have included:
- Books for Umoja Uaso Women's Group, MADRE's sister organization in rural Kenya, for the communities' primary school.
- Video production equipment for MADRE's sister organization, Ibdaa, to help young people in the Dheisheh refugee camp in Palestine document their experiences of military occupation and constructively articulate their demands for justice.
- Playground equipment for CADAMUC, the first women's health clinic on the North Atlantic Coast. The equipment has helped draw even more women and children to the clinic, where they can take advantage of women's health services.
- Prescription eyeglasses for Cuba donated through the Cuban Red Cross.
The success of MADRE's Helping Hands campaign depends on the support of our members. There are many ways you can help.
- Check MADRE's Wish List, an updated list of items needed by our sister organizations. Items that are always needed include school supplies, English- and Spanish-language children's book, medicines and medical supplies, health and hygiene supplies, and eyeglasses. Contact us to arrange a donation.
- If you will be traveling to any of the countries where MADRE works and would be willing to carry a donation for our sister organizations, please let us know. MADRE can arrange for you to hand deliver essential items to our sister organizations.
- Donate today to cover shipping costs for MADRE's humanitarian aid programs. Please specify "for shipping" in the notes field of the donation form.
MADRE encourages you to organize creatively for Helping Hands:
- Plan a fundraiser to purchase supplies or a movie night where admission is a bottle of medicine, shampoo, lotion, a bar of soap or a toothbrush.
- Write letters to the editor of your newspaper about Helping Hands
- Set up a box for donations in your school, workplace, local library or community center.
- Collect used eyeglasses at your optometrist's office; medicine samples from your doctor's office; children's books from bookstores, neighbors, friends and coworkers; educational materials from elementary schools and health supplies from local retailers.