RAISE Projects
Maria and three of her children
Maria never knew about family planning until Profamilia’s mobile health brigade visited her new hometown to teach classes on family planning and sexually transmitted infections. Cielo, a Profamilia field worker, noticed Maria quietly digesting the new information and reached out to her.
It was just a few days later that Maria appeared at the Profamilia clinic. But she was going to have to wait a little longer. Her pregnancy test had come back positive, a discouraging turn of events for Maria, who had just learned how to control the size of her family.
Maria still plans to undergo sterilisation after delivery. Until then, Profamilia and its mobile health brigades are helping Maria experience another first - in her sixth pregnancy, Maria is receiving antenatal care for the first time.
RAISE supports Profamilia in bringing critical reproductive health services to the "forgotten people" of Colombia’s Pacific Region, the second largest displaced population in the world.
On the ground
For four decades, unrelenting fighting between the government and rebels have forced up to four million Colombians to flee their homes, making Colombia the world’s largest humanitarian crisis after Sudan. The situation is worsening - the number of displaced people is growing at the highest rate in over two decades.
Stripped of their livelihoods and largely cut off from health services, the millions of displaced living in the isolated Pacific Region of Colombia are called the "forgotten people". Drug traffickers often control the highways, and river routes and torrential rains flood the roads, making travel to health services perilous. Even if reaching health care were easy, many could not afford it.
The reproductive health (RH) of the displaced in the Pacific Region has suffered. Sexually transmitted infections (STIs) are as common as respiratory infections. Domestic violence is more prevalent than elsewhere in Colombia, and women have many more children, and have them at younger ages.
How RAISE is helping
With RAISE support, Profamilia, the largest sexual and RH organisation in Colombia, is bringing critical RH services to impoverished, displaced people in 28 municipalities of the Pacific Region in western Colombia.
Bringing RH access by road and foot
Mobile health brigades visit remote communities to offer RH care to people who would otherwise receive none. Travelling by truck and sometimes by foot with supplies strapped to their backs, the staff set up improvised clinics.
The mobile health brigade clinics offer:
- Family planning
- Antenatal care
- General medicine consultations
When clients need more complex care than the brigades can offer, such as emergency attention or surgery, the project transports them to a hospital or one of six Profamilia clinics.
Linking to government services
Sometimes clients know little about existing health services to which they are entitled. As part of bringing greater health care access, the project also registers clients for the national health system, so they are eligible to receive services at any public institution.
Empowering communities through education
Profamilia educates youth and adults on family planning methods, sexual and reproductive rights, gender-based violence, and STIs, including HIV/AIDS. Profamilia also trains young people to be community leaders and peer educators.
Country Context
- Colombia has no camps for the displaced, forcing civilians to scatter throughout the country.
- Half of displaced Colombian women have endured domestic violence.
- A third of displaced adolescents are pregnant or parenting.
- Displaced Colombian women have an average of six children.
- The unemployment rate for displaced Colombians is three times that of the general urban poor.
RAISE Partner
Profamilia seeks to improve the sexual and reproductive health of the poorest and most marginalised Colombians through 33 health centres around the country. (profamilia.org.co)
Providing care at a Profamilia facility
Providing care at a Profamilia facility
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