VIDA: Volunteers for Inter-American Development Assistance

Musicians in Otavalo, Ecuador by David Chamberlain

VIDA: Disaster Relief, Medical Missions, Medical Suppy Recovery in Central and South America. US staff and volunteers filled its last 40' ocean container for the year 2001 valued at an approximate wholesale value of $410,000 of an estimated 11 tons of unused medical equipment. The containers left the port of Oakland on December 27th destined for the port of Callao in Peru. This was the 25th container of the year which marked a record total $16.4 million in medical aid sent to Latin America in 2001, a 90% increase from previous years. Additionally, in 2001, for every $1 you contributed, VIDA was able to provide $69 worth in medical supplies and equipment as over 99% of VIDA's budget went directly to support programs overseas.

Visit the VIDA online.

VIDA would be more than willing to accept donations of the following items:

Computers
Monitors
Cell Phones
Office Supplies

Donate a Vehicle
If you are thinking about replacing a car, or have an RV or boat that is not used anymore, consider the benefits of donating it to VIDA. You will receive fair market value as a tax write-off, and avoid the headache of selling a used vehicle.

Create an Estate Plan
A new partnership with Gilliss Valla & Dalsin, LLP, a law firm in Lafayette, California, is available to assist the friends of VIDA with their estate planning needs. They will work with you to create or revise your estate plan so that your assets will be distributed according to your wishes, without time-consuming and costly court proceedings, and to minimize your estate's exposure to estate taxes. For every new estate plan created for the friends of VIDA, Gilliss Valla & Dalsin, LLP, has agreed to make a substantial cash contribution to VIDA. Please contact Antonio Valla, Esq. or Steven Willock, Esq., at 925-962-9009, or at .

Volunteer
VIDA would not have the impact it does or even exist without the support of our volunteers. Our main need right now is for a biomedical technician to test and provide basic technical support to the various medical equipment we receive.

Corporations
Donate medicine, medical supplies or professional services. If your company has medical supplies or other resources you feel would benefit VIDA's work, please review our list of most needed supplies and give us a call. Or, participate in VIDA's Sponsor A Container Program whereby corporations are given the opportunity to help communities by making a financial contribution equivalent to the costs of shipping a 40 foot container to Latin America. VIDA will provide the company a biography accounting for the distribution of the container’s contents its impact on recipient organizations and communities.

Ecuador
Since 1998, VIDA has partnered with Child Family Health International (CFHI) to equip teams of doctors and medical students who travel to indigenous Shuar communities of the Ecuadorian Amazon in efforts to establish primary health clinics in the region.

VIDA expanded its program in Ecuador in 2001 to include the shipment of ocean freight containers carrying large amounts of medical supplies and equipment that have been distributed to health facilities in the Andean town of Cuenca and in the main cities of Quito and Guayaquil. In 2003 VIDA also partnered with the Junta de Beneficencia de Guayaquil, a 115-year old charity that runs 4 large hospitals as well as several clinics and nursing homes in this large port city providing mostly free medical service to over over half a million of the poorest each year, to provide them with the large quantities of medical supplies and equipment that they desperately need.

Mexico
In March 2001, VIDA representatives traveled to Mexico to assess the needs of the area and establish a relationship with a group of professional women in the health field who were trying to improve the access and quality of health care of Mexicans in need. Later that same year, VIDA-Mexico was established by this group of women, with the support of VIDA-USA, in Zamora in the centrally located state of Michoacan.

With 4 million people, the state of Michoacán is similar in size and population to Ireland, but dialysis services for low-income persons are only available in the capital city of Morelia. VIDA's first project was the establishment of a permanent dialysis center (Centro de Diálisis VIDA) at the General Hospital in Zamora with 6 Cobe C3 machines sent from the United States. Patients now will not have to travel such long distances anymore to recieve much needed dialysis treatment.

Cuba
In 2001, VIDA started making containers full of medical aid destined for Cuba. VIDA is working through Cuban Health Network , a non-profit organization from south-east United States which has been taking aid to Cuban hospitals and smaller clinics in need of medical supplies for several years in a smaller scale.

Peru
Since its origins in 1992, VIDA-Peru has worked with 1200 health care facilities and social service programs throughout Peru, north to south, from coastal cities to Andean villages and Amazon communities.

One such benefactor is the refugee camps outside of Ica, Peru where water is a scarce resource for families displaced by El Nino flooding. VIDA has worked closely with community leaders in the camps to provide medicine and medical supplies for children.

Chile
VIDA's sent its first ocean container to Chile after the El Niño floods in South America in the winter of 1998. VIDA now works with Educational Foundation for Economic & Social Development (FEDES) to distribute the medical aid sent in subsequent containers to impoverished areas in several places on Chile's long coast.

Nicaragua
A father waits for a medical consultation at the Dispensario San Francisco de Asis in Managua, a center staffed by volunteers and funded through private donations. VIDA equips the center with antibiotics and medical supplies. Maria Mercedes Arguello, the center's founder states: "VIDA has been an invaluable resource for the dispensario. We simply don't have the means to provide all the medicine and supplies necessary to treat our patients. The support of VIDA has strengthened our program and allowed us to care for many more patients."

While VIDA has been sending medical aid to Nicaragua since 1996, VIDA-Nicaragua was established in 1999 to better serve the needs of the country, as was the case after the devastating Hurricane Mitch, in which relief efforts VIDA was actively involved from the start.

El Salvador
Since 1995, VIDA has worked with the Walter Soundy Trust, a non-profit organization dedicated to improving the lives of underprivileged Salvadorans. The Foundation serves as VIDA's vital link to deliver medical supplies to over 35 health institutions in the Department of La Libertad. From providing antibiotics to the Oscar Arnulfo Romero home for orphaned children to delivering wheelchairs to the St. Vincent de Paul rest home for the elderly.

Honduras
When Hurricane Mitch hit the coast of Central America in October of 1998, VIDA was well prepared to aid the rescue missions after the hurricane's destruction. Within weeks, VIDA delivered its first container to Honduras carrying $642,000 in medicines and medical supplies to the millions of people left devastated in the hurricane's wake. VIDA now works through the San Francisco Bay Area Honduran Association to send containers with much needed medical assistance to this Central American country.

Guatemala
VIDA has collaborated with the Rotary Club of Guatemala since 1996 to promote access to health care services throughout the country. An important beneficiary of the partnership is the Hilario Galindo Hospital in Retalhuleu. After being abandoned for twelve years, the Rotary Club completely renovated the building while VIDA supplied it with the necessary medical equipment. The cooperative effort allowed the hospital to re-open its doors in August of 1998.

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