Meet the Lopez brothers. Alvaro (left, age 29) and Jose-Luis (right, age 34) live in a community in the heart of the Nicaraguan sugar industry.
Both work in the fields, cutting cane, applying pesticides, and seeding.
Both have been diagnosed with the fatal disease CKDnT.
Jose-Luis and his wife Isabella have three children: Felicia, 9, Carmen, 14, and Pablo, 16.
Jose-Luis started working in the cane fields 20 years ago at the age of 14. He was fired for trying to organize his fellow workers to fight for better working conditions.
After losing his job, Jose-Luis learned that he had CKDnT. Despite his diagnosis, he continued to work in the sugarcane fields to support his young family.
Today, Jose-Luis knows that the working conditions worsen his already-damaged health, but there are no other jobs available to him. Working in the fields is the only way for him to support his family.
Jose-Luis’ younger brother Alvaro contracted the disease after only a few years of working in the fields. Although he is also well aware that the work is ruining his health, he continues the work to support his 10-year-old daughter Karen.Isabella has been working in the sugarcane as well, and she is in the early stages of CKDnT. Even their 16-year-old son Pablo works in the fields, exposed to the grueling working conditions related to this devastating disease.
To prevent young men like Pablo from falling victim to this horrible disease, La Isla Foundation is working to break this deadly cycle. With your help, we’re finding the causes of this disease and striving to improve working conditions for sugarcane laborers.
But Jose-Luis and Alvaro are already sick. Once their kidneys stop working, the only way for them to stay alive will be dialysis treatment.
That’s why La Isla Foundation is working with the local hospital, a local university and Nicaragua’s Ministry of Health on an comprehensive program to evaluate, improve and expand the current treatment for patients in the final stages of this disease.
Today, you can buy more time for Jose-Luis and Alvaro to spend with their family. By helping to improve the health care available, you can touch and extend the lives of thousands of men suffering from CKDnT.
In the past two months, more than one hundred friends like you from all over the world have donated over $5,000 to improve the outcomes for individuals afflicted with CKDnT. We deeply thank everyone who has donated to support this campaign.
Today we aim to reach our goal of $7,000. You can help get this project off the ground. Today, YOU can make a difference!
Thanks to a generous anonymous donor,
Please make a donation. Even a small amount helps.
You can be part of the solution. You can save lives.
*Interviewees’ names were changed to respect their privacy.
