Learn About Mama

Alicia Huete, or "Mama Licha" as she is known in the community, lives in Estelí, a town in the northern highlands of Nicaragua. She has run a clinic out of her home, open 24 hours a day to everyone in her community for years. On her reputation alone, she acquired the bare essentials of what it takes to offer services from her home. Her kitchen was subdivided by a single partition where she was seeing patients often with a head lamp because the lighting was so inadequate.

Mama Licha's mission is a selfless dedication to her community, working to provide needed services to those with few resources. As a human rights activist she has always seen all patients regardless of their ability to pay. She is beloved by the community and has worked as a nurse and a midwife for 34 years persevering through the Revolution and then the Contra War. Just like many midwives throughout the world, out of a deep sense of dedication to the lives of women and children, she believes that in order to create a healthy community, it must start with treating the whole woman, to in turn raise a healthy family.

Her vision has always been clear and her resolve unmatchable. Understanding the critical need for improving access to reproductive health services in Nicaragua, Mama teamed up with Juntos Adelante to build a free-standing clinic for women's health and natural childbirth. After much work and incredible support from friends, family, and partner organizations, the team raised sufficient funds to build the clinic and equip it with donations of necessary supplies and medications. The clinic's mission is to realize Mama's lifetime work by providing compassionate care and dignity in their health care choices. The clinic's first birth occurred in September 2004!