Families in Action pays mothers to improve health, By Chris Kraul, June 8, 2011, Los Angeles Times: “An innovative social program taking hold in Latin America may have left Luz Dary Lopez a single mother, but it has helped her and hundreds of other poor women in this central Colombian city gain a measure of financial independence, self-respect and better living standards for their families. Partly funded by the World Bank, the program, called Families in Action, pays Lopez and 4,200 other poor mothers in Tunja about $100 a month as long as they attend diet and hygiene classes, get their children to school and have them undergo medical exams. The cash is a significant bonus for Lopez and other families who make less than $250 a month. In addition to the money, and health and education benefits, the program gave Lopez the courage to leave her abusive husband. She learned in ’empowerment’ classes that she didn’t have to tolerate his violent attacks and that she had a right to a look for a job, something her machista spouse had prohibited…”
Tag: Colombia
Teen Pregnancy and Birth Control Access – Colombia
Colombia launches large-scale birth control effort, By Chris Kraul, December 12, 2010, Los Angeles Times: “When 80 women from the poor Agua Blanca district of Cali got free contraceptive implants last week, they became the first local beneficiaries of one of Latin America’s most liberal reproductive rights laws. Colombia’s Congress this fall passed a law guaranteeing all citizens access to free contraceptive drugs and surgical procedures, including vasectomies and tubal ligations. The benefits are only now filtering down to shanty neighborhoods such as this one in northeast Cali, where birthrates are among the nation’s highest, particularly among teenagers, health officials here said…”
Poverty and Income Inequality – Colombia
Despite billions in U.S. aid, Colombia struggles to reduce poverty, By Juan Forero, April 19, 2010, Washington Post: “Eight years after President Álvaro Uribe took office and began harnessing billions in U.S. aid dollars to pummel Marxist guerrillas, Colombia is safer for this country’s 45 million people and for the foreign investors who have flocked here. But stubbornly high levels of poverty expose a harsh reality: Despite better security and strong economic growth, Colombia has been unable to significantly alleviate the misery that helps fuel a 46-year-old conflict and the drug trafficking behind it. What social scientists here call lackluster results in fighting poverty have become a campaign issue ahead of May elections, in which Colombian voters will elect a president to succeed Uribe, Washington’s closest ally on the continent. Unless a 43 percent poverty rate can be steadily reduced, experts on the conflict contend, Colombia could regress even as the United States continues to provide military assistance…”