Every once in awhile, I meet someone whose life is so dedicated to helping
others, I am left in awe of their unselfish determination to make a difference.
Almost four years ago, I met and wrote about Madison resident Martha Hoffman who
started Call to Care Uganda that to date, through her fundraising efforts, has
provided money and resources for much-needed wells and schools in several
villages.
Recently, it was a special privilege to meet and get to know a
similarly unique woman, Kristyn Zalota who is passionate about preventing the
needless deaths of mothers and babies in Laos by training village nurses and
providing simple, inexpensive birthing supplies as well as educating pregnant
women.
Kristyn grew up in Cromwell and graduated from Yale with a
master’s in international relations and a focus on Russia. Fluent in Russian,
she traveled to foreign centers doing analysis of the political and economic
climate. With her expertise, she could have had high-paying positions with the
government or industry. Instead, while in Russia, she met her husband to be,
Maxim, a computer scientist who had attended college in Michigan, and they both
decided to volunteer to serve as teachers in Thailand.
During their
teaching contract, they also were able to travel to Laos and were devastated by
the poverty and the many orphaned children they saw there. Settling in England
where her husband received his MBA at Oxford and Kristyn had a baby, they then
came back to Connecticut where Maxim started a small software company.
However, Kristyn could not forget the many orphaned children she had seen in
Laos. They were left motherless because so many women were needlessly dying in
childbirth. In fact, infant and maternal mortality rates in Laos are among the
world’s highest. From 2008 to 2011, Kristyn worked with Burmese, Cambodian and
Ugandan women, and then, in 2012, she partnered with Our Village
Association.
In some remote areas of Laos, women even
give birth alone in the forest. The simple clean birth kits and training
provided has been recommended by the United Nations. The sterile kits contain a
padded sheet for comfort and easy clean-up, a clean cord-cutting implement for
clean cord-tying, medicated soap and a sterile surgical blade and cord clips, a
biodegradable bag as well as pictorial instruction.
In training, the six
cleans are stressed: clean hands, clean perineum, clean delivery surface, clean
cord-cutting implement, clean cord-tying and clean cord care. CleanBirth.org recognizes the critical
importance that the nurses they train, who share the same culture and religion
as their patients, take ownership of the project.
When you learn that
worldwide, one mother dies every 90 seconds from pregnancy and birth-related
complications, and that 80 percent of those deaths are preventable, you realize
how essential this work is. A donation of only $5 buys one of the birthing kits.
A $10 donation makes a perfect gift for Mother’s Day or a baby shower. The
recipient is gifted with a beautiful card showing a photograph of a Laotian
mother and child and is inscribed with these words, “You have been given a gift
that saves lives and makes birth safe for mothers and babies in Laos.” Cards may
be ordered on line from CleanBirth.org.
Contact Jean Cherni, certified senior adviser for Senior Living Solutions and Pearce Plus, a helpful, full-service program for seniors contemplating a move, at jeancherni@sbcglobal.net.
