Empower Ecuadorian Women to Elevate Communities

Hello everyone!

Adjusting to the global pandemic has been a challenge for everyone, and for Mírame it’s been no different. I’m pleased to announce that the program has risen to the occasion and pivoted its services to virtual platforms – with great rewards!

In May, Mírame’s biggest annual project occurred for Respected Childbirth Week. This year, everything about the project changed. Last minute, an online conference between 12 different midwives, obstetricians and birthing professionals was organized. The event was called “Encuentro Parteras De America. Explorando el parto junto a ti.” (An encounter of birthing professionals: Exploring childbirth with you).  It spanned 10 different Latin American countries, and received over 11.4k views once live(!). In total, over 120k people interacted with the informational and promotional material hosted online, and at the time of this written report, over 16,000 have watched the online conference!!!

An amazing and unexpected success indeed.

During the 3 hour virtual event, various themes were discussed ranging from (little known) women’s rights in childbirth- such as the right to choose birthing positions, receiving food and water during labor, the right to have a spouse or midwife present during labor, etc. – all the way to esoteric and ancestral understandings of childbirth practices and meaning as a time of extreme transformation, for both mother and child.

The conference was an amazing success, with 547 different people commenting online about their feelings of gratitude for the workshop and personal reflections. One of my favorite comments received was from Alexandra, who said, “What a wonderful encounter of wisdom and love. Thank you for being our voice, and the voice of all the women who give birth each day. Blessings.”

Following such an amazing experience with virtual outreach, Mírame was inspired to provide more digital services with the goal of connecting to a wider range of people searching for emotional support and personal transformation tools during this global pandemic.

In Ecuador, as in many places around the world, government enforced health controls have been extreme, and many people have been forced to stay at home with no option of leaving. Many have lost jobs due to forced employment restrictions, and emotional stressors are on the increase, causing turmoil in the home and in the mind-body connection.

To help met this need, Mírame joined with Fundación Hearts of Gold to host a series of 6 workshops online to help nonprofit leaders, the majority of whom are women, handle the crisis that is striking their own homes and their own mind-body connections, so they can continue to be pillars of strength for their growing, vulnerable communities of need.

6 leaders in self-care volunteered their time to educate local Cuenca community leaders in themes of: Loving the Body through Self Massage, Recommendations of Cohabitation During Quarantine, Removing Stress from the Body with Exercise, Mindfulness and Meditation for Everyday Living, Entrepreneurship During the Pandemic, and 7 Basic Capacities in a Person Simply Alive with Life. So far the self-care workshop series has been a success, with an average of 20 nonprofit leaders tuning in each session.

We look forward to seeing how Mírame continues to evolve during this global pandemic. We’ve been blessed to grow our virtual skills to reach a wider range of audiences and are excited to add online outreach to our service strategy.