Donations from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are helping migrants in Colombia, Ecuador and Honduras get the medical care they need, including urgent mental health care.
Dr. Marilyn Garcia is working with families in Ecuador to help them deal with uncertainty.
“Sometimes there are families that may have gone two days without eating, including their children,” she said.
Garcia is a psychologist with Project HOPE (Health Opportunities for People Everywhere), an international global health and humanitarian aid organization.
The Church recently donated $3.4 million to Project HOPE to help improve the health of vulnerable populations.
Garcia leads mental health sessions for migrants, focused on dealing with anxiety and depression.
“They struggle with uncertainty, so to be able to provide those resources to them and help them, it makes them feel more relaxed,” Garcia said. “It’s like they have more confidence in saying ‘I know what’s the next step that I have to do.’”
Garcia said this work is urgent. Many of the families she works with have fled their home countries due to violence and political instability, according to a news release on projecthope.org.
The UN Refugee agency estimates as many as 25 million people will be displaced from Central and South America this year.
