GRAND GEDEH, LIBERIA — Samaritan’s Purse is helping mothers and children in Liberia where malnutrition and infant mortality rates are high by providing access to safe delivery rooms and critical maternal healthcare training.

Daniel Ruiz – Samaritan’s Purse:

The needs for mother and children across Liberia are many. Malnutrition rates are high. Maternal and infant mortality are also high. We have a two-pronged strategy for helping to meet those needs in the rural area. We’re working on improving access to safe delivery rooms through rural health clinics.

And then on the other hand, we’re addressing the educational needs through a leader mother strategy. So we bring mothers from these rural communities together. We train them on good health practices for pregnant mothers, for new infants, and then they take that message to their communities.

H. Michael Kesselley – Samaritan’s Purse:

This is my country, this is where I’m from. So I will not want to see pregnant mothers die. I will not want to see malnourished children. I want to see everybody healthy, because the more healthy people become, the more good the community also become.A lot of people within the entire village, they are hungry for this health information. If Samaritan’s Prize had not come to carry on this maternal-neonat al health program, there could be a lot of problems.

Lucy Swen, RN:

I’m so excited because we are so happy for Samaritan’s Prize to come to help us. The clinic was handmade of mud, but Samaritan’s Purse brought new things. They brought tile, they brought beds, they brought ceilings. And now we are so excited. Even the patients that are coming here, they are so happy.

You can see the clinic is now a modern one. From the deplorable one, it’s become a modern one. It’s been upgraded.

Michael Bryant, MD:

Liberia is one of the world’s poorest countries and that has basically meant that often families do not have the means to feed their children very well.

So actually having people who go into the communities who actively look for children who are malnourished and spread a message saying that we have a project here which will help them and which will do it completely for free of charge and there’s medicine available as soon as they arrive, that has had a huge impact.Samaritan’s Purse is doing so many things.

I mean, there is everything from supporting the staff through training, supporting staff salaries, buying a lot of the medications and supplies that we need.

It’s fair to say that without Samaritan’s Purse, the program would be less than half the size of what it is now. So this is an opportunity, not just to kind of preach out people, firstly show them that actually Jesus cares.

It’s the first time that most of these moms get a chance to actually see something of Christ. And we’ve got to make that count. We’ve got to make that contact count. And the medical practice there flows out of what Christ has done for us.

Samaritan’s Purse is a nondenominational evangelical Christian organization providing spiritual and physical aid to hurting people around the world. Since 1970, Samaritan’s Purse has helped meet the needs of people who are victims of war, poverty, natural disasters, disease, and famine with the purpose of sharing God’s love through His Son, Jesus Christ. The organization serves the Church worldwide to promote the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The Samaritan’s Purse International Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART) program is committed to meeting the critical needs of victims of war, poverty, famine, disease, and natural disaster. We stand ready to respond at a moment’s notice whenever and wherever disaster strikes. The DART specializes in providing water, food, shelter, and medical care while sharing the Good News of Jesus Christ.

CONTACT: Kaitlyn Lahm, news@samaritan.org

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