Family Planning & Reproductive Health
From 1997 through October 2024, we have offered more than 5000 Reproductive Health Workshops to more than 110,000 student and adult participants. We have delivered quality family planning services adding up to more than 300,000 Couple Years of Protection (CYPs) – the internationally accepted metric by which USAID measures family planning achievement – to more than 78,000 rural and low-income urban women and their families. These numbers grow month-by-month as the work goes on in the face of extensive unmet need.
Family planning is a stated policy of the Venezuelan government, but the nation has not been able to keep up with the tremendous demand for this critical elective service. In a country whose population has more than quadrupled over the past 60 years, the unmet need for family planning remains enormous. In the state of Sucre, where we work, the teen pregnancy rate is one of the highest in the country, placing it among the highest in the Caribbean basin, and hence in the world.
This has all been well documented in the international press:
Venezuelan Women Lose Access to Contraception, and Control of Their Lives – The New York Times
The Turimiquire Foundation, through our sister organization Fundación ServYr in Venezuela, has helped to re-animate family planning services in the state of Sucre. We have supported and expanded family planning in two public hospitals, several private clinics, urban “ambulatorios” (free walk-in public health facilities), and in selected rural ambulatorios in three counties. We offer reproductive health education, contraceptives, medical procedures, logistic, and administrative support for family planning services and reproductive health workshops. All services are implemented by Venezuelan health care professionals in strict accordance with Venezuelan public health policies.
Population Matters, Turimiquire Foundation – YouTube
Enabling choices, changing lives: Q&A with Turimiquire Foundation
Slowing the “Reproductive Treadmill” in Rural Venezuela: The Turimiquire Foundation Story
Partnership with Turimiquire Foundation
Population, Reproductive Health, and Climate Resiliency: Views From Latin America and East Africa
THANKS to the Erik and Edith Bergstrom Foundation, the Population Connection, Direct Relief International, and all of our donors, we have been able to sustain and extend our family planning services in response to the intense demand that we are facing down here. We are working to fill the widespread shortage and high cost of reversible contraceptive methods with the stability of longer acting methods, i.e., IUDs, implants, sterilizations. We are also extending our educational outreach through high school and community workshops and social media, reaching more young people with information about their reproductive health and family planning options.
Our impact has been substantive and life-changing.
