If you missed our original post on the award, go here for details: http://tiafoundation.wordpress.com/?s=innovation+award.

Thank you very much to all our friends for your interest in our work and our progress with the Innovation Award.  We all have our fingers and toes crossed!

We had a great meeting with Jorge Garibay, General Manager at the Grand Bay Hotel-Isla Navidad Resort.  From left to right, Laura Libman (Tia Foundation) with Dr. Roberto Martinez, Dr. Francisco Enrique Castenada Rico and Dr. Enrique Castenada all from UAG‘s Programa de Medicina en la Communidad, made the trip to Barra de Navidad to make plans for the next project launch nearby. Part of a world class medical program, these doctors will lead a brigade of 30-40 medical students and professors who provide the incredibly comprehensive training the fortunate Tia Promotoras receive. 

Lic. Garibay and our friends at the Isla Navidad Resort are providing us with much needed space and volunteers.  Jorge Garibay is also helping us coordinate with the local municipality and community organizations. The project will be held the week of March 19th and the graduation on Friday, March 23rd.  Some of our donors plan to be guests at this luxury resort while they attend the graduation ceremony and stay for a relaxing short vacation afterward. 

Stay tuned!  More details to come…

The Community Health Worker  is the most cost effective way to save lives,  according to the Frontline Health Workers Coalition, comprised of Global Health Organizations like the Gates Foundation and Sve the Children, in a recently published report.

“The world has experienced dramatic declines in deaths thanks largely to the care provided by these local health heroes,” said coalition chair Mary Beth Powers. “But despite this progress, nearly twenty-one thousand children still die every day, most from preventable causes, and a thousand girls and women die each day in pregnancy and childbirth. Investing in the technologies and medicines to prevent and treat diseases is important but insufficient. Simply put, without health workers to deliver the life-saving medicines and information, there is no pathway to good health.”

Read the entire report, “Frontline Health Workers: The Best Way to Save Lives, Accelerate Progress on Global Health, and Help Advance U.S. Interests” at http://frontlinehealthworkers.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/FHWC_Issue_Brief_with_Embargo_Stamp-1.pdf.

Laura Libman, Tia’s CEO will be presenting on Friday, October 14th at noon at the conference being held at the Desert Willow Conference Center in Phoenix.  For more information, go to http://lodestar.asu.edu/nlm-conferences/2011-conference or click here to download the pdf flyer.

This groundbreaking conference is presented by ASU’s Lodestar Center for Philanthropy and Nonprofit Innovation in collaboration with the Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP).  Their agenda for the conference offers many excellent speakers and presenters.  Hope to see you there!

The Tia Foundation has been invited to submit a full proposal for the Secretary’s 2011 Innovation Award for the Empowerment of Women and Girls!  We submitted our proposal last Friday.  The award is given to organizations whose models represent pioneering approaches to the political, economic and social empowerment of women and girls around the globe.  Two winners will be chosen and each will receive a $500,000 grant and will be honored at a ceremony at the Department of State in Washington, D.C.

Please cross your fingers for us!  If we should win, more than 75,000 people will have access to health care who did not have it before and there will be at least 150 new positive and strong female leaders in our villages!

A recently published and well-researched article, “Collaborative Impact“,  in the Stanford Social Innovation Review discusses the five conditions of collective success.  In other words, the best way to solve a community’s problems is through a collaborative effort if the solution contains certain conditions.  Those conditions are a common agenda, shared measurement systems, mutually reinforcing activities, continuous communication, and backbone support organization (in our case, Tia).

Tia’s model contains all five of these success criteria and works harmoniously with its training partner, UAG‘s PMC program (Dr. Rico and Dr. Miguelangelo on the left), Municipal and Community Representatives (on the right), other government entities like DIF, other NPOs and local partners.  This collaborative effort is what makes Tia’s model full self-sustaining.  Even if Tia would have to close its doors, the program would continue in perpetuity because of these remarkable, interconnected relationships.

Check out the article yourself at http://www.ssireview.org/articles/entry/2197.

“If there’s ever a time when the needless deaths of women in childbirth — one every 90 seconds or so somewhere in the world, according to the United Nations — should be on our radar screen, it’s at Mother’s Day. And we know how to save those lives. “

All you have to do is click on the Donate Now button on the right hand side of this page or mail your tax deductible donation to P.O. Box 36203, Phoenix, AZ 85067.  We are happy to mail your mother an acknowledgment of your generosity.

The well-written article (in Spanish) explains Tia’s unique program and urges readers to celebrate Cinco de Mayo with the many friends of Tia at Manny’s Mexican Restaurant’s big benefit bash on May 5th in Avondale.

The fact that Tia is a finalist for Secretary Clinton’s Innovation Award was also mentioned (keep your fingers crossed for us). We are honored to have such a prominent and beautifully written story in Prensa Hispana, a respected newspaper with a long history of diligently serving the Hispanic community.

Keep up with the developments on the Cinco de Mayo event by visiting Tia’s website and Manny’s site too (www.mannysmexicanfood.com) and by liking Manny’s on Facebook or joining Tia’s cause page on Facebook too.