Objective

To improve the health status of Peru's population, targeting the class of extreme poverty. AMOR proposes to do this by means of education, while concurrently providing desperately needed medical and dental services to the populations in greatest need.

WHAT IS "TOUCH OF LOVE"?

A founding mission project, “Touch of Love” is an outreach of nonprofit organization AMOR Projects (Ambassadors' Medical Outreach and Relief).  The project's purpose is to found a surgical clinic and trade school to serve remote jungle villagers’ needs for health care, health education, and trade development.  Beginning Touch of Love calls for construction and equipping of first stage of surgical clinic, trade school, and industries.'

WHY IS “TOUCH OF LOVE” NEEDED?

• Research shows interplay between education, poverty, and health status.

• Over the past 5 ½ years Richard Mathews M.D., AMOR Project's native Peruvian physician has traveled among river villages in the Amazon Basin, providing medical care for rural Peruvians.   He states that as a physician entering a community, he is able to intervene in emergent and chronic situations, but is unable to permanently improve many villagers’ health status.

• Problem: Villagers lack educational opportunities and are economically impoverished, i.e. lacking resources for simple things such as soap for hygiene.

• Summary: extreme poverty leading to lack of development and formation, ultimately impeding health progress.

• Need: medical care and educational/economic opportunities in order to improve health status.

• Intervention: accessible medical care along with education providing skills for trade development.
  

Through AMOR Project's experience of medical work in river communities, AMOR Projects has been able to note many of the common health problems.  These problems are intimately associated with low levels of education and extreme poverty.  For this reason AMOR Projects has decided upon implementation of Touch of Love.  Touch of Love targets the creation of an agro-industrial trade school with the goal to improve technical-industrial education and by this means achieve better economic and health levels.

Considering the setback in development of towns and rural communities with high incidence of extreme poverty, Touch of Love believes that the roots of this situation are a lack of technical superior education.  The population has very little knowledge of production and sale of their resources, leading to a successive generational cycle of extreme poverty.

Through the creation of an agro-industrial school, the villagers will receive increased knowledge of managing and marketing resources.  In this manner Touch of Love will be able to improve the economy and health of individuals and village communities.

Recipients of the project will be young people, regardless of gender, who have little educational opportunities due to lack of economic resources but who show ability.  These students will have opportunity to work in exchange for their studies in areas such as agriculture, bee farming, fish farming, carpentry, mechanics, etc.

Touch of Love will also target improved health conditions through the creation of a clinic whose objective is to attend regions of greatest need.  This goal will be accomplished through mobile medical groups effecting campaigns in different areas.  The medical base and centre of activities will be located at the Km. 38 project site, providing medical and specialized services (among these surgeries and hospitalization for serious cases).

WHEN DID “TOUCH OF LOVE” BECOME A REALITY?

• Project planning was was initiated July 2005.

• Onsite investigation initiated August 2005.

• Onsite planning and implementation initiated January 2006 by Jenni Goodwin, R.N., and Richard Matthews, M.D.

• First site construction begun May 2006.