A stand-out moment from Heart-Links’ 2021 annual general meeting was when a former board member told us that our special guest speaker Flor Reaño Segura, director of Heart-Links’ partner Latidos, was her hero. After listening to Flor describe the tremendous work she and her team have done in the Zaña Valley this past year and continue to do, I think everyone at that meeting would agree that heroic is the word that best describes it.
With the support of Heart-Links donors, Latidos has supplied families and individuals in need in the Zaña Valley with educational materials, nutritious food and mental health counselling. They have helped rural women to grow healthy produce for themselves and their families and to generate much-needed income.
Now, with vaccination against COVID-19 a priority, Flor’s team of volunteers has mobilized to provide logistical support—PPE, uniforms, food and refreshments, transport, lodging—to frontline volunteers and medical personnel deploying vaccines throughout the Zaña Valley.
Initially only 20 vaccines had been alloted to Zaña, but with the support of Flor’s volunteer brigades, clinics in the valley are vaccinating as many as 300 people a day. Heart-Links just received the official tallies for May: Flor and her team helped 4,278 people get vaccinated.
These women are heroes. They have continued to help even after experiencing loss themselves. Flor fell ill with COVID-19 last year, and she and two other Latidos members have lost several family members to the disease. They carry on, as Flor says, “so that the vaccine reaches everyone, without regard for age, without regard for social condition.”
Listen to Flor yourself and learn more about the amazing people who are making your donations make a difference in so many lives: