Donating Supplies to Red Cross Potosi

These are weird and challenging times for everyone, everywhere. Please read our post from yesterday for a more thorough update on Mano a Man and our current situation during the COVID-19 pandemic. The strain on healthcare systems is being felt everywhere. In Bolivia, we always receive requests to receive donated medical supplies & equipment, but the COVID-19 pandemic has drastically increased the need, with hospitals, clinics, and municipal governments urgently asking Mano a Mano for the medical supplies they need do do their jobs and simply don’t have enough of.

A Red Cross Potosi ambulance made a special trip all the way to Santa Cruz (about a 12-hour drive each way) yesterday to purchase some medical supplies. They also asked Mano a Mano if we could provide some of the many other supplies they needed. Last night (this morning) at 1:45am, they stopped in Cochabamba to fill their ambulance with supplies donated by Mano a Mano.

Supplies Sent From Minnesota in November 2019 Arrived in Bolivia in March 2020

Mano a Mano volunteers in St. Paul loaded 4 containers with 90,796 pounds of medical supplies and equipment in November 2019, and these containers were received at our Cochabamba warehouse earlier this month – just days before Bolivia went on lockdown. We are happy that these supplies arrived, and will be distributed to organizations and people in need throughout Bolivia.

We had planned on shipping our first 2 containers of medical supplies & equipment of this year on March 6-7, but we were unable to find containers, since they are usually sourced from China. Our plan at the time was to reschedule for April, but that is up in the air now too with the lockdowns and Stay at Home orders. We are hoping to be able to send more supplies soon.

Thank you to everyone that helps make this work possible! We are all in this together.