The Red Deer Doula Association (RDDA) is making a humanitarian trip to Honduras in June and among those going on the trip is Olds resident Christa Duquette.
For those who may not know, a doula is a woman who is hired by a family to provide guidance and support during or after a pregnancy.
Duquette has been doing work as a doula for seven years. She took her training while she was pregnant with her third son.
“It’s been a journey ever since,” said Duquette.
The next part of that journey is the trip to Honduras with the RDDA.
Duquette said the RDDA has been "a really great support network for me as a doula, so it’s very exciting to go with them, especially knowing we’re going to be working in some pretty challenging situations.”
The challenges she referred to are language barriers and it being a foreign environment.
The purpose of the trip is for the Canadian doulas to work with the Dar a Luz (Spanish for giving birth) organization in Honduras to provide compassion to those in labour in the hospitals.
“The focus is to help bring some compassionate care to very busy and often challenging situations in their hospitals," said Duquette.
“Women don’t have the support the way we have support with our spouses, partners, friends or family. They aren’t allowed the support because it’s so busy.
“We’re also looking at bringing some medical and baby supplies that they have limited access to in Central America.”
The association settled on the June date in December last year. Because the trip is a volunteer effort, all the doulas had to raise their own funds to go on it.
“All of us are raising our own funds, so most of us have received donations from family and friends,” said Duquette. “We’ve held fundraisers individually and together.”
To help raise funds for the trip, a silent auction is being held at the Canadian Brewhouse in Red Deer on April 26.
