Charity aiming high to boost healthcare
La Paz in Bolivia stands at a breathtaking 3,660 metres and while its inhabitants have adapted to the rigours of high-altitude living, it is not so easy to cope with the hardships of a low-income lifestyle.
Bolivia is South America’s poorest country, with 70% of the population existing below the poverty line and about the same proportion without access to public health services.
The Irish Family Planning Association (IFPA), better known for its campaigning and awareness raising work at home, is helping to bring much needed support for sexual health clinics and education programmes to the towering mountainous regions of Bolivia.
The scale of the need for such support is stark. Each year an estimated 30,000-40,000 backstreet abortions are carried out among a population just twice the size of Ireland, often with lethal results.
A baby born here is 15 times more likely to die before the age of one than an Irish infant and maternal mortality is 200 times higher than in Ireland.
Sexually transmitted infections are on the rise, especially among the already very vulnerable communities of street children and uneducated migrants from the countryside. Even youth native to the city experience high levels of unwanted pregnancies, with the inevitable early school drop-outs and early marriages that follow.
Clinics and education programmes targeting thousands of at-risk young people and children from the age of 10 are run by local voluntary group, CIES, with EU funding.
IFPA acts as the link between Bolivia and Brussels, fulfilling the role as mentor to Bolivia and watchdog for Brussels.
But the IFPA also has hopes of encouraging more direct involvement by Ireland. This week a small delegation from the association and three Irish politicians will see the work of CIES and meet with government representatives and health officials in Bolivia to discuss their ideas for the future.
The group, including Deputy John Deasy and Senators Fiona O´Malley and Dominic Hannigan, will see if they can recommend to Irish Aid that it begin allocating funds to expand the work of CIES and similar organisations.
IFPA chief executive Niall Behan believes the projects are worthy of Irish support, especially as Irish Aid revised its health policy in 2007 to include for the first time specific pledges to support the development of sexual and reproductive health initiatives abroad.
“We would like to see more Irish Aid funds focused on these types of projects because we can see even from the Irish experience how important they are.
“As Irish attitudes changed to sexual and reproductive health and people became able to make choices about how to protect their own health, when to start families, how to space children, that made a huge impact, not just for individual women and families but for the wider society.
“It was crucial to our economic development that people had choices around their education, careers and life options.”
Irish Aid´s funds are under pressure from the recession and the need for assistance in Africa and Asia but Mr Behan says a little help would go a long way: “What we hope this study tour will do is start the process of engagement in this area. Most projects start small but it’s important to at least take the first step.”
lCaroline O’Doherty is travelling in Bolivia with the Irish Family Planning Association, www.ifpa.ie
