Women Making a Difference

Against All Odds: Beatrice Delva’s Commitment to Family Planning in Haiti

	Beatrice Delva. Source: LMS/Haiti

Beatrice Delva

On foot. On horseback. In a canoe. In a truck braving flooded rivers. Beatrice Delva has used many modes of transportation in her career as a distribution agent for family planning commodities in rural Haiti. But travel difficulties are just one of the many challenges Beatrice overcomes as she delivers condoms, birth control pills, and other family planning methods from Port-au-Prince to nearly 300 local distribution sites.

Every year, thousands of women die during pregnancy or due to complications from childbirth that could be easily treated. In Haiti, just one in four women or their partners practices some form of contraception; and the rate of maternal mortality – women who die from pregnancy-related complications – is the highest in the Western Hemisphere.

Beatrice is one of many women working to improve the situation. A mother of two, she has been working for three years in commodity security and management under the USAID-funded Leadership, Management & Sustainability Project. Despite bad weather, poor road conditions, political unrest, and any of the myriad difficulties in Haiti, Beatrice makes sure that family planning supplies arrive in a safe and timely manner. Sometimes it may take six hours, traveling on foot, for her to reach a remote area. She’s been in cars mired in mud, and was once caught in a truck sliding off the road due to a mudslide, putting her in danger until local community members arrived with ropes to pull Beatrice, her driver, and car off a precipice.

The local people have come to know Beatrice as she makes her rounds, and will always offer a horse, a canoe, rope, or whatever they think she needs, if she runs into difficulties.

“Meeting the people with whom I work in the field – especially the remote areas – gives me the strength to keep going,” says Beatrice. “Also seeing the increase in the number of people using family planning methods.”

Beatrice has seen some improvements over the course of her employment. “With the family planning methods arriving by Miss Beatrice, our field activities have increased significantly,” states one nurse, who sees Beatrice frequently. “At one point, the Providence Hospital in Gonaives had many difficulties, but now we’ve gone from providing 400 to 1,200 vials of Depo Provera every three months.”

Story provided by LMS/Haiti

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