Discover the incredible impact of the First Thousand Days in our latest updates! Read about our nurses’ successful Vitamin Angels training, the empowering relaunch of the Alpha Gardens Project—creating first-ever savings accounts for mothers—and the arrival of baby carriers and umbrellas blessing our mamas! Laughter, learning, and life-changing dignity inside.
Our 5 wonderful nurses had a training with Vitamin Angels (VA), one of our partner ministries. VA donate multivitamins to our pregnant and nursing mothers and deworming medication for our babies. This training was done through watching videos and having a zoom call for the evaluation session for practice administering deworming meds to children. Record keeping and crucial elements of safe practices were demonstrated. Each nurse was given 3 posters and a chart and checklist to review when administering medications.
The VA Administrator expressed great satisfaction at the high level of professionalism and skill acquisition. It was a long day, but the material and time spent together was filled with laughter and learning. All the nurses successfully completed the certification exam.
Alpha Gardens
The ‘re-start’ of the Alpha Gardens Project has already shown incredible potential for our Mothers Program.
As you know, many mothers in our program lack running water and electricity at home. Our centers support them by providing land, water, seeds, fertilizer, and expert gardening instruction. We currently have three centers with established, growing gardens.
Our Agronomy staff provides the necessary expertise and teaching. While our initial plan was centered on the mothers, we have seen a positive shift where the fathers are primarily taking on the hard work of plowing the ground, creating the 18-inch raised beds, and planting the seeds. The mothers then participate in rotating shifts to water and weed. To facilitate this, mothers have the option to have staff watch their babies while they work; one center even has a co-op rotation for watching babies under a mango tree! The work is physically demanding, yet singing and laughter are common during work time.
The participation incentive has made a major difference. Alpha Garden participants can either use the produce they grow or sell it back to MH for use in our daily lunch program. Their money can be used immediately or can be saved, through an account with MH, to be withdrawn later at their discretion. For most, this is the first time ever that they have had a savings account. Their responsibility over this income has given participants integrity in their work and dignity in their ownership to decide what is best for their families. This has led to increased garden participation numbers at every center.
Baby Carriers!
Living Water Church in Orange City, Iowa graciously sent 11 baby carriers and 35 umbrellas down to BLESS our mamas and babies. Our first recipients of a carrier goes to any mamas with twins. This mama from Me Bel Mer is thankful for a baby carrier! It’s hard to walk 25-40 minutes with one baby let alone 2! We also take into consideration mamas that walk a long way with healthy and heavy babies! Rosena comes early 3 times a week to work in the Alpha Gardens. Little Stevenson isn’t very little (praise God!) We asked if she would like a carrier and an umbrella. She joyously received both to help her walking commute to our centers!
Many Hands is an Iowa-based nonprofit dedicated to transforming together, to be in action, in a broken world. We desire to walk alongside the community and empower individuals and families by focusing on education, agriculture, leadership, safe structures, youth programs, and early childhood development. Together, we can rebuild lives and restore hope, one person, one family, one community, at a time.
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