Direct Relief Women

By Lynda Millner   |   June 6, 2019
Co-chairs of Direct Relief Women Beth Green and Carolyn Chandler on either side of the keynote speaker Kusum Thapa

Direct Relief Women held a Mother’s Day celebration in the new mammoth facility. Direct Relief Women has enabled over 60,000 safe births since its inception. Every $25 makes one safe delivery possible. Shockingly there are 303,000 women who die each year from preventable complications occurring during pregnancy and childbirth – 830 per day. We know how to prevent them.

Maggie Catbagan-Cox with Direct Relief CEO/president Thomas Tighe at the fundraiser

This volunteer branch of the non-profit Direct Relief was conceived in 2011. There are 500 local volunteers whose aim is to help mothers around the world. The DRW has sent more than one thousand midwife kits that include tools of the trade, to 13 countries since 2012. Many times the midwives are trained but they have no supplies to work with.

Direct Relief president /CEO Thomas Tithe told us, “It took us two years to develop our midwife kit and it is now considered the global standard. We are the largest provider in the world.” Thomas has been leading Direct Relief for twenty years. They used to have to rent five warehouses to handle their entire product. Now with the opening of their 155,000 square foot building they are able to move supplies out much faster during a disaster. It’s all state of the art and is designed so they can function even in a disaster. They even have one thousand solar panels on the roof.

Direct Relief event co-chairs Kim Thomas, Dana Seltzer, and Deb de Ponce

DRW invited Dr. Kusum Thapa to come and speak in Santa Barbara. She has over 25 years of experience working as an Obstetrician and Gynecologist both in Nepal and the UK. She has provided leadership and technical guidance in the development and implementation of reproductive maternal newborn health interventions in the global and country level across Asia and Africa, including Afghanistan, Pakistan, South Sudan, Cambodia, Myanmar, and Liberia. She led Nepal’s program in the development of competency-based training manuals for obstetric fistula and pelvic organ prolapse. She showed pictures of women being put in horrific mud huts during their period. The world of women is still very barbaric in many places.

Besides the midwife kits there is free distribution of prenatal vitamins and increased access to emergency care when complications occur during pregnancy and childbirth. And obstetric fistula repair is still an ongoing concern. Of course, Direct Relief also delivers life saving medical aid to people in need in the U.S. and around the world.

The ladies responsible for turning a warehouse into a party venue complete with roses and cocktail tables were: Dana Seltzer, Deborah de Ponce, and Kim Thomas, all of whom live in Montecito. To learn more, call communications director Tony Morain at 805.879.4975. If you see a bright orange box anywhere, you’ll know Direct Relief has been there.

 

You might also be interested in...

Advertisement
  • Woman holding phone

    Support the
    Santa Barbara non-profit transforming global healthcare through telehealth technology