The following excerpt is from an August 24, 2010 article published by the Latin American Herald Tribune. To read the article in its entirety, please click here.
GUATEMALA CITY – Heavy rains caused by a tropical wave in Guatemala affected at least 600 people and damaged 116 homes while leaving millions in agricultural losses and several rivers overflowing their banks, officials said.
The Conred emergency management office said in its latest report on the rains that most of the 585 people affected live in the southern province of Escuintla.
On Guatemala’s southern coast, the torrential rains flooded at least three communities around the port of San Jose and damaged 26 homes.
At the same time in the municipality of Nueva Concepcion, Escuintla, another 18 communities were flooded by the overflowing Coyolate River…
Click here to read the rest of the article, or here to read more about this year’s rainy season.
The following excerpt is from an August 24, 2010 article published by The Latin American Herald Tribune. To read the article in its entirety, please click here.
GUATEMALA CITY – Four children have died in Guatemala over the past few hours as a result of the torrential rains falling across the Central American country, authorities said Tuesday.
The first death was registered in Puerto de San Jose, 150 kilometers (93 miles) south of the capital, where a boy of 9 was swept away by the current in a canal.
The youngster’s body was found on Monday by emergency workers on the bank of the Chiquimulilla canal, about 30 kilometers (20 miles) away.
Firefighters also reported the death Monday night of three sisters in the community of La Reforma, about 270 kilometers (167 miles) west of the capital.
The girls, ages 6, 8 and 9, were crushed by a wall that fell onto their house…
Click here to read the rest of the article, or here to read more about this year’s rainy season.
The following excerpt is from an August 23, 2010 article published by The Kansan. To read the article in its entirety, please click here.
After Tropical Storm Agatha collided with Guatemala this summer, its aftermath created scenes of villages destroyed and families swept away. With a psychological toll as heavy as its physical effects, the storm remained long after the skies cleared. There to help pick up the pieces was Wuku’ Kawoq, a nonprofit organization founded in 2007 partly by two alumnae, Emily Tummons and Anne Kraemer Diaz, and annually aided by University students.
Disaster relief immediately became a priority in addition to the organization’s pre-existing summer plans of providing medical services to Guatemalans in their indigenous Mayan language, Kaqchikel.
Tummons, board chair of Wuku’ Kawoq and an instructor of Kaqchikel at the University, said that among the organization’s undertakings are child malnutrition projects in poor coastal communities, water projects in rural communities and diabetes projects near Guatemala City…
Click here to read the rest of the article, or here to read more articles about our profile subjects.
The following excerpt is from an August 24, 2010 article published by KLTV.com. To read the article in its entirety, please click here.
LONGVIEW, TX – Good Shepherd Medical Center, Longview Orthopaedic physician, Dr. Jordan Stanley, and Refuge International make the dreams of an 18-year-old boy come true through pro bono surgery.
Alejandro Ixim was born with bilateral club feet in a remote area of Guatemala, and never received treatment for this very curable condition. In the United States, children with this condition begin treatment at birth and most children with club feet can be ‘cured’ with braces, according to Deborah Bell, president of Refuge International.
Alejandro never had access to such care, and had never seen a doctor or a nurse until he was a teenager. As a young adult, having bilateral club feet is crippling. Alejandro grew up learning to walk on the sides of his feet, not the soles, and he could only walk short distances…
Click here to read the rest of the article, or here to read more articles about our profile subjects.
The following excerpt is from Roots & Wings’ latest newsletter. To read the newletter in its entirety, please click here.
Tech Center Progress: Sewage Treatment Plant Addition
It’s been nearly four months since beginning construction on the new Technology Center in Pasac, Guatemala. Progress has been constant despite Guatemala’s rainy season (May through October). Everything is on schedule, and the building should be finished in September 2010.
One exciting development is that the Technology Center will be hooked up to Pasac’s brand new sewer system and treatment plant—the first of its kind in the region. This addition will allow the Technology Center to have its own back-up septic system. The construction of the sewage treatment plant is scheduled to begin August 15, 2010.
The vast majority of Guatemala’s cities and towns have no waste water treatment systems, and sewage contaminates most rivers and streams. Erik Swanson, RWI Founder and President, said, “The fact that the tiny village of Pasac has been able to organize this sewage plant project and get public funding for it is a big deal.”
The following excerpt is from Asturias Academy’s latest newsletter. To view it in it’s entirety, please click here.
Eduturismo Stresses Hygiene
As the Month of Health concluded, we were greatful that the Christ United Methodist Church and a group of nursing students participated in our Eduturismo program. Equipped with medical supplies, they reinfornced the importance of dental care, eye care, and handwashing.
In addition, they made a tremendous contribution of medical supplies to our forthecoming medical clinic. Check out the video above to see how this Eduturismo group worked together with our students. We wish to thank all those that participated!
The following excerpt is from an August 10, 2010 article published by The New York Times. To read the article in its entirety, please click here.
The sound made by two women’s hands simultaneously patting corn dough into tortillas bears a strong resemblance to the sound of scattered raindrops falling on a bare roof: staccato thwacks that mean a storm – or a meal – is imminent.
Last Friday evening, in a remote town in Guatemala, I was settling into an 8-by-8-foot concrete block bedroom with Jesus posters on the wall when I heard the thwacks. I glanced outside, past the ripe pomegranates hanging from the branches of a nearby tree, and out to the green hills that towered over Lake Atitlán. The sky was clear, and thus I deduced that dinner preparations were underway…
Click here to read the rest of the article, or here to read more about Guatemalan culture and events.
The following excerpt is from an July 31, 2010 article published by The Washington Post. To read the article in its entirety, please click here.
SAN SALVADOR — El Salvador Drug cartel violence in Mexico is quickly spilling south into Central America and is threatening to destabilize fragile countries already rife with crime and corruption, according to the United Nations, U.S. officials and regional law enforcement agents.
The Northern Triangle of Central America — Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras — has long been a major smuggling corridor for contraband heading north to the United States. But as Mexican President Felipe Calderón fights a U.S.-backed war against his nation’s drug lords…
Click here to read the rest of the article, or here to read more about health & safety.
From Houses to Homes has issued its latest newsletter. Below, we have printed a letter from the director, Joe Collins, with an update about the aftermath of TS Agatha. In addition to the letter, you can click here to read about the other great projects that FHTH undertakes.
Letter From Our Founder/Director
Hello Everyone,
I am sure that you have seen in the news that Guatemala has experienced not one but two natural disasters in the past month. First the Volcano Pacaya erupted and then came Tropical Storm Agatha. We are deeply saddened by the loss of life and the suffering the poor of Guatemala are enduring.
Tropical Storm Agatha hit Guatemala on Saturday, May 26, 2010 and destroyed many lives. To date there are 174 dead, 113 missing, 397,808 people affected in some way, 39,160 homes damaged, 162,857 people evacuated and there are still 27,823 people living in shelters. Guatemalan President Colon said that Tropical Storm Agatha has caused more damage than Hurricane Mitch in 1998 where more than 268 people died and Tropical Storm Stan in 2005, which killed 669 people.
My friend, Roberto Perez, who lives in San Antonio Palopo at Lake Atitlan, lost 10 members of his family. A mudslide destroyed 25 homes in this community. Needless to say, they need your prayers and your donations. Can we count on you? Please, any amount will be appreciated.
The following excerpt is from a July 22, 2010 article published by Stanford University News. To read the article in its entirety, please click here.
Children in Crisis: Stanford Researcher Blends Medicine, Politics to Improve Health of Guatemala’s Poorest
BY ADAM GORLICK
SAN JUAN EL MIRADOR, Guatemala – Dozens of children are heading into a metal-sided, one-room building in this tiny village overlooking Guatemala’s western highlands. On most days, this is the community school. But today is special. It’s a free health clinic, and the children are coming to see the American doctor.
Paul Wise, a pediatrics professor at the Stanford School of Medicine and senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, has medicine to settle their stomachs, help their breathing and stop their skin from itching.
Wise diagnoses ailment after ailment: Diarrhea. Pneumonia. Scabies. He doles out ointments, capsules and powders. Almost every child leaves with a bag of vitamins – something to help offset the malnutrition that’s stunted their development and left them too small for their three, four or five years…
…Politics are as necessary as medicine in places like this. That’s the premise behind Children in Crisis, a program created by Wise to blend Stanford’s expertise in medical research and international studies to provide health care to the world’s most vulnerable patients: children living in politically unstable regions.
“It’s not enough to make sure everybody is vaccinated, or that everyone who needs them gets vitamin supplements,” Wise says. “It’s about understanding and beginning to address the political requirements for the provision of these kinds of resources.” …read more
The following excerpt is from the July newsletter from Common Hope. In it, they detail the lingering emotional and psychological impacts of Tropical Storm Agatha. To read the newsletter in its entirety, please click here.
The main streets in the village of San Miguel Escobar are cleared, community members have started work again, and school is back in session. Anyone passing through town would be surprised to learn that just six weeks ago the streets were covered in several feet of mud, rocks, and other debris and all activity in the community was focused on trying to dig out and provide food, water, and medical care to those whose homes had been destroyed.
But inside the homes and within the local public school, many San Miguel residents are still suffering from the aftermath of the storm…read more.
The following excerpt is from a July 17, 2010 article published by SIFY News. To read the article in its entirety, please click here.
Archaeologists have discovered a tomb of an ancient Mayan king in Guatemala, filled with materials that have been preserved for approximately 1,600 years.
Brown University’s Stephen Houston and his colleagues uncovered the tomb, which dates from about 350 to 400 A.D. The tomb is packed with of carvings, ceramics, textiles, and the bones of six children, who may have been sacrificed at the time of the king’s death.
It lies beneath the El Diablo pyramid in the city of El Zotz.
“When we sunk a pit into the small chamber of the temple, we hit almost immediately a series of ‘caches’…
Click here to read the rest of the article, or here to read more about Guatemalan culture & events.
The following excerpt is from a July 13, 2010 article, published by CNN.com. To read the article in its entirety, please click here.
(CNN) — An appeals court ruling has raised the possibility that Guatemalan women will be able to seek asylum in the United States because of the high rates of femicide in that country.
A Guatemalan woman seeking asylum based on her belief that she would not be safe in her native country will have her case reviewed, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Monday.
Lesly Yajayra Perdomo, a native of Guatemala who entered the United States illegally as a teenager to join her mother in 1991, was facing deporation in 2003.
She requested asylum “because she feared persecution as a member of a particular social group consisting of women between the ages of fourteen and forty,” according to the court document. In particular, Perdomo argued that women in Guatemala “were murdered at a high rate with impunity.”…
Click here to read the rest of the article, or here to read more about Women’s issues in Guatemala.
The following excerpt is from the June, 2010 newsletter of Avivara. To read the article, and newsletter, in its entirety please click here. To view a video of the aftermath of TS Agatha, and Avivara’s response, please click here.
Embracing Guatemala…(by Tara Byrne)
Two months ago I said goodbye to family and friends and boarded a plane for Guatemala to begin my three month internship with the nonprofit organization, Avivara. While envisioning how my journey would unfold, I greatly underestimated the depth and breadth of the experiences I would have and the bonds I would develop with this new community.
Currently, I am teaching English in the Mayan village of El Yalu where even Spanish is a second language. I have been befriended by an amazing group of teachers, one of whom gives me a ride to school on the back of his motorcycle so that the students at his school can learn English. I am also seeing first-hand the state of education in Guatemala through other school visits with Avivara. It is disheartening to walk into make-shift schools and see bare walls, shoeless students, and empty seats where children could be. (They are most often out in the fields with their families.) Yet, at the same time it is incredible to meet teachers who endure traveling long distances, and teach with few resources because they believe so much in the power of education.
New Life Through Education has issued its latest newsletter, which is excerpted below. In addition to a general update, they told the story of a very special young man with Marfan Syndrome.
Byron Alexander has Marfan syndrome, a connective tissue disorder. Marfan causes him to be tall and thin, have cardiac, skeletal and vision problems. Byron has studied with us for seven years. He is now in sixth grade. He is an exceptional young man.
On examination it was found that the retina of his right eye was totally detached. He had surgery within days. The Ophthalmologist, one of the best in Guatemala, says the surgery went very well. The retina was reattached and the lens removed. The outcome won’t be known until the eye is healed and Byron is fitted with glasses.
The surgeon did not charge a fee. The anesthesiologist reduced her fee. His cardiologist did a free echocardiogram before he had surgery. With all these favors the total cost: surgery, medicine, doctor’s appointments and new glasses will be very close to $1,000.
This would be a very low cost in the USA but is a lot of money for the New Life budget. Please consider a donation to pay for Byron’s eye care. To donate online to New Life click here.
Namaste Direct has issued its latest newsletter, which is excerpted below. To find out more about Namaste, please visit their website. To read the newsletter in its entirety, click here.
It’s been a busy summer for NamasteDirect as we’ve recently launched our new microcredit program. Under our new initiative, Namaste is delivering not only financial literacy training and personal business mentorship, but microcredit loans as well. Prior to this we worked with microfinance institutions to get the loans out to clients. Impact assessments have shown that these client’s (who receive credit from one of our partnering MFIs and support services from Namaste) performance on their loans was 4-6% better than other clients within the same institution that were not supported by Namaste. We have decided to make the loans ourselves so that we may select the clients we are working with to ensure that we are enrolling women interested in improving their businesses. We are excited to test this new model and hope to one day introduce other micro finance institutions to our model of providing credit, financial literacy training and mentorship. Read on to learn more about this exciting endeavor!
The following excerpt is from a July 11, 2010 article published by The Latin American Times. To read this article in its entirety, please click here.
GUATEMALA CITY – Violence continues unabated in Guatemala, where at least 23 people, including six women and a girl, died in one day this weekend, the press reported Sunday, citing police statistics.
The violence in Guatemala had been leaving an average of between 11 and 15 dead each day, but on Saturday there were several incidents, among them two armed attacks that left nearly two dozen dead across the Central American country.
Click here to read the rest of the article, or here to read more articles about health & safety.
The following excerpt is from a July 1, 2010 article published by InsideCostaRica.com. To read the article in its entirety, please click here.
GUATEMALA – Guatemalan health authorities issued a red alert and began a drive to reduce the rising number of dengue cases and growing Aedes Aegipty mosquito population reported in the first six months of the year.
As of June 19, official statistics recorded 4,391 confirmed cases, including 98 of the hemorrhagic strain, compared to 1,133 in a similar period in 2009.
Click here to read the rest of the article, or here to read more about health & safety.
The following excerpt is from a June 21, 2010 article published by IPS. To read the article in its entirety, please click here.
Rosenda Gómez, a 53-year-old mother of five, knows all about challenges. To overcome them, she started a modest sausage business in Guatemala, and thanks to her leadership skills and training and other support she received, she is now an example of the economic empowerment of women.
Sixteen years ago she began to make homemade sausages in her village, Laguna Ocubilá, to sell in the nearby city of Huehuetenango, the capital of the northwestern province of the same name.
But her business was a micro-enterprise that allowed her family to just barely scrape by — until things changed radically three years ago, when the Centros de Servicios para los Emprendimientos de las Mujeres (CSEM) came to her village.
CSEM, a network of centres providing technical and financial services for women entrepreneurs, is sponsored by the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) in association with Guatemalan institutions…
Click here to read the rest of the article, or here to read more about women in Guatemala.
The following excerpt is from a June 25, 2010 article published by the Vancouver Sun. To read the article in its entirety, please click here.
The Guatemalan government said it would suspend mining at Goldcorp Inc.’s Marlin mine in response to concerns raised about the company’s environmental and human rights performance.
But Goldcorp, which denies the allegations, says the suspension process will take time and for now the mine is operating and expects to continue operating.
The allegations — which include drying up and contaminated water sources, negative health effects and a lack of prior consent to the mining — were brought by 18 local Mayan communities to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, a branch of the Organization of American States.
Last month, the IACHR asked Guatemala to shut down the mine until it had time to look into the merits of the complaints…
Click here to read the rest of the article, or here to read more articles related to the environment.
The following excerpt is from a June 20, 2010 article published by The Colorado Daily. To read the article in its entirety, please click here.
BROOMFIELD — What began as a simple trip to Guatemala in May as part of the United Nations’ World Food Program has turned into a passionate cause for Broomfield-area real estate agent Lisa Crawford.
Crawford, founder of the Denver chapter of the Friends of the World Food Program, was one of eight volunteer coordinators for the U.S.-based nonprofit that builds support for the United Nations program. She toured poor villages to see firsthand World Food Program sustainability projects.
“The only way to get what we’re talking about is to see it,” said Jessica Alatorre, the Friends of the World Food Program outreach associate who led the tour…
Click here to read the rest of the article, or here to read more articles about our Profile subjects.
The following excerpt is from a June 23, 2010 article published by redOrbit.com. To view the article in its entirety, please click here.
Work to augment efforts to clean and protect lake and drinking water from harmful algae blooms.
A team of scientists from the University of Nevada, Reno, DRI, Arizona State University and University of California, Davis has returned from a two-week expedition to Guatemala’s tropical high-mountain Lake Atitlan, where they are working to find solutions to the algae blooms that have assailed the ecosystem and the drinking water source for local residents.
The lake’s water is contaminated with watershed runoff and waste water, which contributes to increased algae growth and suitable conditions for bacteria and pathogens such as, Escherichia coli and Giardia that can proliferate and enter untreated drinking water.
In 2009, the Global Nature Fund designated Guatemala’s Lake Atitlan as its “Threatened Lake of the Year.”
“It was super-productive working with Guatemalan officials, scientists and universities in our capacity building project,” Sudeep Chandra, co-team leader from the University of Nevada’s Department of Natural Resources said. “It’s important to develop a relationship with the locals to coordinate conservation work and build their capacity to find solutions.”…
Click here to read the rest of the article, or here to read more about the Guatemalan environment.
The following excerpt is from a June 11, 2010 article published by NBCMiami.com. To read the article in its entirety, please click here.
He wades through garbage dumps on a regular basis.
Food for the Poor photographer Benjamin Rusnak is just that dedicated to his craft. For at least one week each month, Rusnak visits a developing country to tell its tragic story through images.
“Very often images are lost and stories are lost in the huge wealth of visuals that we have. This is one way of stopping people and getting them to think,” said Rusnak, who began his photojournalism career at the Fort Meyer’s News Press.
Rusnak won the prestigious Gordon Parks award, as well as Photo of the Year, from Interaction, the nation’s largest coalition of U.S.-based government organizations devoted to the world’s poor…
Click here to read the rest of the article, or here to read more articles about our profile subjects.
The following excerpt is from a June 7, 2010 article published by National Geographic Traveler. To read the article in its entirety, please click here.
Across Guatemalan farmland, a new breed of bicycles is being used to thresh corn, de-shell coffee beans, and even blend fruit smoothies. There, in a country with a history of endemic poverty, Maya Pedal works to combine exercise and technology to provide livelihoods.
Formed in 2001 and supported by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Maya Pedal’s workshop creates handmade bicimáquinas–low-cost machines made from old bike parts, concrete, wood, and metal…
Click here to read the rest of the article, or here to read more articles about our profile subjects.
The following excerpt is from a June 9, 2010 article published by Reuters. To read the article in its entirety, please click here.
GUATEMALA CITY
Wed Jun 9, 2010 2:07pm EDT
GUATEMALA CITY (Reuters) – Biologists tracking jaguars in the Guatemalan jungle might smell nice but it’s all in the name of science, with researchers finding the Calvin Klein cologne Obession for Men attracts big cats.
Biologists Rony Garcia and Jose Moreira from the Wildlife Conservation Society’s (WCS) Jaguar Conservation Program say they use hidden cameras as a primary source for observing and tracking jaguars in the Guatemala’s Maya Biosphere Reserve.
But they also rely on Obsession for Men, a cologne known for its complex scent, to help lure then research and hopefully ultimately preserve jaguars in the Central American country.
Click here to read the rest of the article. I truly have no idea how to categorize this one, but let’s call it environment.
Recent Comments