Jose Galvez, Lima, Peru

 

One of the more recent project initiatives of World Reach is the LaRoca Prenatal Center. The Center opened in November 2007 and currently serves around 218 women. Trained volunteer staff members counsel, disciple and encourage pregnant teenage girls and women in choosing life for their unborn children. The rate of abortion in Peru is extremely high, and World Reach uses LaRoca Prenatal Center as a vessel to the choice of life and to spreading God’s love and hope to young women throughout the process of pregnancy.

 

LaRoca Prenatal Center has 21 volunteers who counsel and disciple the women. Women enrolled in the program are given scheduled times to come in. However, walk-in visits are always welcomed. The volunteers also take the time to visit the women at their homes, talk with the women's spouses or parents and encourage the whole family throughout the pregnancy process.

 

Medically, the women are cared for by doctors and nurses who visit the Center once a week for medical attention and twice a week for dental care. Women have access to pregnancy tests upon arrival and literature to their condition. Women are also provided vitamins throughout the duration of their pregnancy. The Center hosts a baby shower for each woman before delivery and provides care for the women and clothes for the babies through the first two years of life.

 

Many of the women who come to the Center do not have adequate resources for raising a child. The Center not only encourages the women to choose life for their unborn, but it also gives women the alternative to adoption by finding homes for the infants. The Center teaches women how to get back on their own feet and provide for themselves after delivery.

 

Because the Center is a ministry tool, it is only funded by grants and private contributors. Money donated goes to the purchase of vitamins, basic infant necessities and special training for the volunteer staff members to improve their qualifications for serving and discipling the young women.