Manos Unidas de Calpe is opening its traditional market from today until Thursday next week with the aim of raising funds for the renovation and equipping of a rural hospital in the Indian state of Maharashtra. As in previous years, the market is located in the Kábila Mascarat, in Carrer de Fora street.
The flea market is another activity of this dynamic Calp association, which has been participating in numerous cooperation projects with the Third World for fifty-two years. Manos Unidas has also participated in the Christmas market and in the Valentine's Day plant sales campaign.
This year, the project assigned to the Manos Unidas de Calp group is a programme to improve healthcare by reforming and equipping a rural hospital in India. The project involves the reform of the existing hospital with an extension of the intensive care unit and its equipment through the purchase of 3 incubators, a respirator, an X-ray machine, an ultrasound machine, 4 medical monitors and an ophthalmic refraction unit. It is estimated that the project will have 65,000 direct beneficiaries and will improve health conditions in Chandrapur and Gadchiroli districts in Maharashtra State.
Manos Unidas celebrated its 50th anniversary in Calp in 2018. At present, the association comprises one hundred women who work together in various initiatives and activities to raise money for a specific cooperation project commissioned by the Manos Unidas provincial association. The Association is currently chaired by Pepita Ferrer.
This association is developing imaginative ideas to collect donations, so that a traditional Valentine's Day campaign is already underway in Calp, where plants are distributed directly from house to house or in the Manos Unidas markets, where items donated by shops or individuals, works made by employees and, above all, traditional dishes of home cooking prepared by the employees themselves are sold.
An important fact is that the projects assigned correspond to the actual needs and requirements. During all these years, the money collected has been used to set up hospitals or children's centres, programmes against malnutrition, purchase agricultural machinery, set up orphanages, install lighting or schools in the specific places where they are needed.