Have you ever heard a hungry baby cry? It’s a different cry- more like a wail. After having her first son, our founder, Rosy Gonzalez Speers, heard the hungry cry for the first time. It lasted just a few seconds while she prepared to nurse, and she knew right away what a blessing it was that she was able to make that cry go away. It was at that moment that Rosy decided she wanted to help mothers who had to listen to the hungry cry without the ability to feed their babies. After an unsuccessful search for organizations that focused on care for infants in her mother’s native town of San Francisco de Macoris, Dominican Republic, the idea for La Casa de Nana was born.
La Casa de Nana is a non-profit organization created to provide pre-natal and infant care to the babies of San Francisco de Macoris, Dominican Republic. The first year of life is the most difficult for both mom and baby. Breast milk or formula, clean water, and sanitary living conditions are necessary for the baby, and mothers also need support and care.
La Casa de Nana provides these critical needs and connects mothers to additional resources needed to get healthy babies to their first birthday.
About San Francisco de Macoris, Dominican Republic
A picturesque town located in the northeast portion of the Dominican Republic, in the Cibao region, San Francisco de Macoris is one of the biggest producers and exporters of cacao, coffee, fruits, rice, and beeswax. The sixth most inhabited city in the country with an approximate population of 188,118 as of 2022.
While the island overall is one of the highest-ranked upper-middle-income countries in the world, UNICEF reports that 40 percent of its people still live in poverty; fighting hunger is one of its most pressing concerns and the underlying cause of a high number of deaths among mothers and infants within the first 28 days of life. The public hospital, San Vicente de Paul, located in San Francisco de Macoris is listed as the sixth, of the facilities within the public health system with high death rates.
To improve the maternal and newborn survival rates in the years coming, it is critical that vital needs such as nutrition, clean water, and sanitary living condition are met during the prenatal and postnatal phases of both the mother and infant.
