FARMINGTON – Hundreds of handcrafted items made by women from Africa, Brazil, Guatemala, India, Palestine, Peru and Vietnam will be on sale from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 25, and noon to 3 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 26, in the Bass Room at Franklin Memorial Hospital.

Proceeds will provide women in the remote mountainous regions of Nicaragua with access to preventive screenings for cervical and breast cancer, said Dr Connie Adler, a local obstetrician who has been working for years with the Maria Luisa Ortiz Women’s Cooperative Clinic in Mulukuku to provide health care to families living in rural Nicaragua

It’s the third year Adler has worked with Babbie Cameron of Wilton to raise funds for the Nicaraguan health clinic. It’s the first year they have extended the “World Marketplace” to two days, said Cameron, who has spent her life as a fundraiser for social justice projects from around the world.

Cameron said the handcrafted items being sold, including baskets, beadwork, batiks, lacquered bowls, clothing for adults and children, jewelry, olivewood candlesticks, table linens and toys, are made by women who receive a fair wage and work under humane conditions – conditions that are approved by the Fair Trade Federation, www.fairtradefederation.org.

“Not only is the rate of cervical cancer in Nicaragua higher than the rate of breast cancer, it is one of the highest among women in Central America,” said Adler. While cervical cancer is a disease that kills 290,000 women a year worldwide; it is a disease that is almost always preventable provided it is “caught” in time and treated, she added.

The fundraiser coincides with screenings for cervical and breast cancer available to insured and uninsured women in the Farmington area from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 25, in the new medical office building adjoining the hospital..

Jennifer McCormack, RN, Healthy Community Coalition, which is co-sponsoring the screenings with Franklin Memorial Hospital, said to schedule an appointment for that day call 779-2405 or 1-800-398-6031.

“By holding the two events on the same day in neighboring locations, we are hoping to attract more women to our twice yearly woman’s health day,” said McCormack.

Adler said that despite the fact that the population of adult women in Nicaragua is only about twice that of the state of Maine, the rate of death from cervical cancer in Nicaragua is 10 times that of Maine.

In the past, proceeds from the event went toward the purchase of an ambulance for the clinic in Mulukuku, a town the size of Farmington. Last year the proceeds enabled the clinic to serve villages, which are only reachable by horseback or on foot.