Life-Giving:
Give an Alternative Gift this season that keeps on giving, as a single
gift or a monthly pledge.Your gift will be acknowledged to the receiver
with a beautiful card.Alejandra is 9 years old and has had asthma since she was 6 months old. Like most of our patients at the Clinic, she too lives in Nueva Vida.
All the homes in Nueva Vida are small and most hold a great deal of family members. Alejandra’s home is no different. She shares the home with 4 adults and 2 other children.
Her father works as a construction worker when he can find work. Her mother makes corn tortillas on a wood burning cook stove in the home and sells them. These stoves are not well ventilated, so the house fills with smoke all day long starting in the early hours.
Also in the home are dogs and chickens: dogs to protect them from gang members who might try and break in, and chickens for the eggs and meat. Both are necessary for surviving but extremely detrimental to an asthmatic. Added to the smoke from the cook stove and the animals, the outside air is either filled with dust in the dry season or mold in the rainy season…and all seasons there is trash burning in the yards of neighbors and their own yard.
No wonder Alejandra cannot breathe, but she is not the only one…
Our clinic supports patients with asthma, and emphysema in women who have never lit a cigarette in their lives. We give maintenance inhalers and nebulizers to people who are on-going sufferers to keep the asthma attacks to a minimum.
This season, give a gift that will help us help Alejandra and others like her who suffer from poverty and pulmonary issues.
-Kathleen
