Health Education « Link for Health

Profile: Global Health Missions – UPDATED

Global Health Missions is a non-profit organization founded by two physician assistants and an accountant who met in Guatemala while doing volunteer work in 2009. GHM is founded on the belief that the underserved in developing countries should also have access to quality healthcare.

GHM’s first medical mission involved 10 practitioners, 9 translators, and two local organizations, GIFT and Mayan Families. Each day of the mission, two clinics were run. Local social organization Mayan Families chose the locations of clinics each day based on the direst need; our typical patient hasn’t seen a practitioner in months. Most of our patients are women and children; mothers struggle daily to take care of their children in a country where nearly 23 per cent of children over three months and under five years suffer from general malnutrition, while almost one-half suffer from chronic malnutrition.

Their days were long and challenging, but in the end over 1200 Guatemalans who live in extreme poverty received healthcare; each patient had an intake sheet, was interviewed, examined, and given either medications, a referral for a test, or educated on public health issues, all by an American health practitioner. Those patients we saw that had overwhelming social issues compounding their state of health were referred to Mayan Families for follow-up.

GHM is dedicated to the idea of public health education and empowering those we see with knowledge. Last year we worked with the firemen in Panajachel who are the first-responders to medical emergencies and traumas. Part of our team consisted of two Emergency Medicine PA’s who spent two days with the firemen teaching up-to-date skills in trauma. One of their goals is to continue to provide support to this incredible group of individuals via donation of supplies and continued education in life-saving techniques.

They feel that their first trip was such a success: beyond the numbers of patients, they each have their own unique stories of patients to carry home. They envision this trip as the first of many successes.

To find out more about this group, please see their website, or Facebook page.

Profile: Heart to Heart

Heart to Heart International has been creating a healthier world since 1992. Whether they are providing medical education, delivering medical aid to a hospital and clinic, responding to people in crisis or addressing community-health concerns around the world, Heart to Heart has one big goal: Making the world a healthier place to live and work.

Heart to Heart supports dozens of medical teams traveling to Guatemala every year to impact health. They are also actively working in Sololá region with local groups, schools and officials to address several community-health concerns. Their focus is on preventing water-related diseases. The Sololá region has one of the highest incidence rates of childhood diarrhea—due mainly to its proximity to a source of contaminated water, but also complicated by sanitation issues and hygiene practices. Their approach relies heavily on empowering residents to participate in improving the health of their own communities.

Helping communities help themselves is Heart to Heart’s focus in the Sololá region of Guatemala. They are supplying each school in several communities with water filters, so they have a reliable source of clean water and can reinforce good hygiene practices. Over the next two years, they will strive to provide not only each student’s family with a water filter, but the entire community in which the students live. They are working with several partners locally to address sanitation issues, including reconstruction of toilets and sewer lines. This effort proves that when communities take ownership over the health of their people everyone wins.

To learn more about Heart to Heart, please visit their website. To read about Heart to Heart’s response to the recent natural disasters, please click here.

Profile: Clinica Comunitaria Daniel Comboni

The Clinica Comunitaria Daniel Comboni (Daniel Comboni Community Clinic) located in Mixco, Guatemala, provides health, dental, and educational services. The clinic reaches out to the large population of indigenous people living in poverty and extreme poverty in Mixco by offering health and dental services for a nominal fee. Education and nutrition programs provide the people with the information they need to stay healthy and happy and to live more peacefully.

The Clinica Comunitaria D. Comboni began because the people in the area were aware of the need for health services and missionaries were able to answer that need. The clinic serves to provide complete health care, educational programs, and human services to the most needy families and individuals in the surrounding area. The clinic also assists in other corporal and social works of mercy, including the education of children and development of families.

Following the commandment of Jesus to “love one another as I have loved you,” the clinic serves the people with the greatest needs in health, education, and other social areas.

To learn more about the clinic, please visit their website.

Profile: Wuqu’ Kawoq

Guatemala is one of the poorest countries in the Western hemisphere. Decades of violence, corruption, and racism have stranded much of the population in poverty with uncertain prospects for the future. Although nearly 75% of the population in Guatemala is Mayan, and speaks one of over 20 different indigenous languages, there are no health care or development programs which provide services in these languages.

Wuqu’ Kawoq was founded by a group of development workers partnering with indigenous communities in Guatemala to address this problem. They believe that health and cultural vitality are inseparable from each other. Wuqu’ Kawoq develops first-language health services, with a special focus on primary health care for women, children, and adults with chronic disease. They also support indigenous medical workers, perform research on the state of health in rural Guatemala, disseminate knowledge about traditional health practices, and collaborate with other organizations with similar interests.

Major projects at this time include: child malnutrition prevention and treatment programs; comprehensive women’s health and prenatal care services; primary care for adults with chronic diseases, especially diabetes; development of potable water systems; scale-up of rural health outreach activities; and language revitalization efforts, including the publication of Kaqchikel and K’ichee’ community health resources.

To learn more about Wuqu’ Kawoq, please visit their website.

Profile: Primeros Pasos

Primeros Pasos is a clinic in rural Guatemala that has a comprehensive outlook on health care. With the collaboration of health professionals, health educators, volunteers, and community leaders, Primeros Pasos offers quality and affordable health care and health education to the rural, underserved communities of the Palajunoj Valley of Quetzaltenango, Guatemala. Primeros Pasos works in the Palajunoj Valley, a rural valley in western Guatemala with high rates of communicable diseases, malnutrition, and untreated chronic diseases. Primeros Pasos is the only reliable and affordable source of local health care for the residents of the Palajunoj Valley.

Primeros Pasos has a long-term vision for the improvement of healthcare in the Palajunoj Valley, integrating its clinical healthcare service with health education and preventative care. Primeros Pasos seeks to maximize existing resources, partnering with communities and other organizations to find efficient solutions to health care challenges.

They incorporate and combine clinical care, health education, and community outreach programs to effectively provide preventative and primary care.

Clinical Care: Primeros Pasos provides primary care, dental services, lab exams, vaccinations, gynecological/obstetric care and medications for the approximately 15,000 people living in the valley. Their clinical staff includes a physician, a dentist, a lab tech, and a dental assistant. Rotating medical students from the University of San Carlos and foreign universities supplement the capacity of their full-time clinical staff. There are approximately 7,500 patient visits at Primeros Pasos each year.

Children’s Health Education: Primeros Pasos has developed a large health education program in the community for children and a growing health education program for women. Primeros Pasos gives approximately 500 health education workshops in the Palajunoj Valley covering age specific topics such as hygiene and nutrition, the environment, natural disasters, children’s rights, domestic violence, drugs, delinquency, puberty and several others.

Healthy Schools Program: Through the Healthy Schools Program, Primeros Pasos brings health care and health education to rural schools and day care centers in the communities they serve. Each day, a class from one of the schools in the Valley arrives at the clinic. The children each receive a medical and dental check-up and participate in an exciting and interactive health education program. The day not only provides students with immediate clinical care, but also tools for bettering their hygiene habits and preventative measures to improve their quality of life.

Women’s Health Education Program: The “Stairway to Good Health” Program aims to raise health awareness and provide the women and caretakers of the Valley with the health information they need to empower themselves to make vital healthcare decisions that affect the lives of themselves, their children and families. Primeros Pasos is able to provide workshops that are designed to address health issues and concerns effecting families and communities that the clinic serves, and more importantly, women specific issues that often times are sensitive subjects. There are currently 75 active women in the program in 6 different community groups and the program is looking to start two new groups this year.

Service Learning & Volunteerism: Primeros Pasos is a center for health education, serving as a primary care rotation for Guatemalan medical students from the University of San Carlos – Quetzaltenango and for foreign students who participate in away rotations under the supervision of Primeros Pasos’ attending physician. Each year, over 100 students and volunteers work at Primeros Pasos. The volunteers are at the heart of the clinic’s operations and with their continuous help and support, Primeros Pasos is able to offer an incredible amount of services with few resources.

Cost-Effective Care: Primeros Pasos is a very cost-effective operation, providing medical services to over 7,000 patients and health education to thousands more for approximately $50,000. Primeros Pasos receives approximately 80% of its funds from the Inter-American Health Alliance (IAHA), its U.S. non-profit partner. Click here for more information about IAHA.

For more information about Primeros Pasos or to apply to volunteer as a health educator or a medical volunteer, please visit their website.

Upcoming Trips: Hendersonville Rotary / Shalom Foundation

Patient referrals are being accepted for the June 12-20 Guatemala City trip of The Hendersonville Rotary Club members led by Dr. Bill Taylor and Rip Lebkuecher with The Shalom Foundation.

Dentists, hygienists, eye care professionals, physicians and support team members treated more than 1400 patients while conducting their wellness clinic at Shalom School last year. The Shalom Foundation will be working with all of our Guatemala partners to serve even more individuals this year. Volunteers from this group have participated in medical mission trips to Guatemala for many years.

For more information, contact Allison a Abender@theshalomfoundation.org.

Oral & Maxillofacial Surgical Procedures

Simple dental extractions
Surgical dental extractions
Extraction of partially impacted teeth
Enucleation of jaw cysts
Excision of soft tissue lesions
Biopsies in mouth and lips
Incision and drainage of infections
Repair of soft tissue trauma (lips & mouth)
Alveoloplasty (preprosthetic)
Lingual / buccal torectomies

Optical Procedures

Visual Acuity Assessment
Dispensing of glasses
Patient education on diabetes and cataracts in the eye
Parent education on vision correction of children

Profile: Maya Traditions

In 1988, Maya Traditions founder Jane Mintz, an experienced social worker (MSW) and weaver, began working with indigenous women artisans living in poverty in Guatemala. She observed that their skill of backstrap weaving was a chance for them to earn a stable income for their families while working from home doing what they were already good at. Maya Traditions was founded to help these skilled artisans succeed and preserve their cultures through access to a Fair Trade global marketplace. In 2007 Maya Traditions became a Guatemalan Foundation. They provide consistent work for 85 Mayan backstrap weavers and their families. In addition, Maya Traditions strives to improve the artisans’ quality of life by offering assistance in the areas deemed most valuable by the weaving groups.

At the heart of the efforts at Maya Traditions is the improvement of the weaver’s quality of life. Many are faced with poverty and lack basic services. The group strives to pay a fair wage in the local context. They are also committed to helping the weavers with health care and the education of their children, which are priorities expressed by many women. This involves an herbal medicine project and a scholarship program funded by donations. Establishing the Foundation They have recently established their Maya is a means of extending and reinforcing their work on current projects like the herbal medicine project and the scholarship program. As a Guatemalan Foundation they have access to further resources, which will assist them in their aim to create a sustainable entity for the Guatemalan people with whom they work.

Healthcare: The Fundación Tradiciones Mayas (FTM) Community Health Program promotes preventative health and treatment of common illnesses through the use of medicinal plants and education with Maya families; simultaneously rescuing and preserving invaluable ancestral knowledge. The primary goals are to empower, educate, and train traditional healers, as well as emerging Maya youth in the use of medicinal plants. Through these cooperative and participatory efforts they will help restore and preserve the knowledge of traditional Mayan medicine that is in danger of becoming a lost cultural practice. Furthermore, the project aspires to restore faith in Mayan medicine, and provide access to affordable health care in rural indigenous communities surrounding Lake Atitlán.

Artisan Education: Part of Maya Traditions commitment to educating women is their collaboration with Oxlajuj B’atz’ (OB). OB’s objectives are to provide training for more than 300 weavers and artisans from 21 groups throughout various rural areas of Guatemala. This is accomplished by means of workshops, classes, campaigns and community follow-ups.

Their programs are concentrated in the following areas:

Artisan Skills
Democracy and Group Organization
Health and Well-Being
Small Business Skills
Artisan Skills

Scholarship Program: Every mother dreams for her child to have a better life than her own. With most Maya weavers having no more than a third grade education; they felt it was crucial to establish a formal scholarship program to enable their children to go to school. Since 1997, when Maya Traditions pioneered this effort, they have given away over 1,300 scholarships, including stipends for tuition fees as well as for materials. Last year 135 students benefited from their scholarships, including 26 who receive monthly stipends for high school. Six students proudly graduated this year.

Youth Leadership Programs: Community service is a very important component of this program. Their emphasis is to work with the students to enable them to learn how to give back to their community. To reach this goal they hold two inspirational and practical Maya Traditions workshops every year covering topics such as cultural identity, Maya history, youth issues, and family disintegration. These workshops prepare high school students to teach spoken Spanish and to implement projects in their own villages to benefit members of the artisan groups and the community as a whole. They also ask that the students give two months of community service during school vacation.

To learn more about Maya Traditions, please visit their website, or Facebook page.

Blog Profile: She doesn’t speak Spanish

“I’m moving to Guatemala, but I don’t speak Spanish… at all”

The no habla Espanol “she” is Kerry Smith, a blogger from North Carolina who works in a school for the nonprofit Lemonade International. Kerry didn’t go to Guatemala to become a teacher; she want to be a student, in a Spanish language school this past January. However, after a trip to India fell through, a confluence of events led her to the work she is doing now in Guatemala City

The association with Lemonade International first came about coincidentally; she met Bill and Cherie Cummings when a mutual friend invited her to a gala. Although she knew at the time that her calling was to help the impoverished in developing countries, it wasn’t until she was in Guatemala that she reconnected with the Cummings’ to begin work with La Limonada. What had started as a study trip became a life-changing journey (corny as it sounds), for which she sacrificed her home in the US (including her cat) for the fulfillment of a personal goal in Guatemala City.

For such a dramatic change, the daily routine of prayer with fellow teachers followed by school and a bus ride around the city must bring some comfort. The La Limon School holds two class sessions, corresponding with those in the public schools; when not in the morning or afternoon session there, students come to La Limon. The lessons Kerry teaches cover anything from hygiene to the bible, English to tooth brushing.

The blog itself is an amalgamation of observations of life for Guatemalans, photographs and personal experiences. As Kerry’s faith is a defining part of her as well as her work, it is a common thread throughout the blog, which I felt lent a really wonderful sense of her; that you are not just reading the words on the page but the person writing them and their influences. I had a lot of fun reading it, and came away inspired. Though the ultimate outcome of her trip has been so much more meaningful than expected, she still gets what she came for: a little improvement of her Spanish, a day, a phrase, a prayer at a time.

To check out Kerry’s blog, please click here.

Profile: Faith in Practice

The mission of Faith In Practice (FIP) is to improve the physical, spiritual, and economic conditions of the poor in Guatemala through short-term surgical, medical and dental mission trips and health-related educational programs. Their mission is based on an ecumenical understanding that as people of God they are called to demonstrate the love and compassion that is an outward sign of God’s presence among us. Faith In Practice’s life-changing medical mission is to minister to the poor, while providing a spiritually enriching experience for their volunteers.

Currently, their medical teams travel to the most remote and poorest parts of Guatemala, setting up makeshift clinics in rural villages. Working side by side Guatemalan volunteers, their medical teams provide general care and make referrals to Obras Sociales del Santo Hermano Pedro (The Obras), now a hospital that houses four state-of-the art operating rooms thanks to Faith In Practice supporters, and to four additional smaller hospitals throughout Guatemala. Patients now have a safe and pleasant place to stay at their guesthouse, the Casa de Fe, while awaiting and recovering from surgery in Antigua. Their public health initiative has seen the development of the VIA/Cryo Program designed to train Guatemalans to identify and treat pre-cancerous cervical cells. They are currently developing a Preventative and Restorative Dental Program. Through these programs, their more than 800 dedicated volunteers served more than 17,000 patients in 2008.

FIP Mission Teams (click here to see 2010 calendar of trips):

Surgical Teams: Faith In Practice medical and dental teams travel to Antigua, Guatemala which is the base for all the teams. All teams volunteer their services for a week, usually traveling from the US on a Saturday and returning on the following Saturday. Teams are divided into a group of health providers who work at the hospital in Antigua and a group which travels to sites and villages in the countryside to provide family practice medicine and dentistry.

Medical and dental professionals working at the Hermano Pedro Hospital and Orphanage for the poor bring all the supplies they expect to use for performing surgery and post operative care. On Sunday, all surgery candidates are seen and reviewed; and a surgical schedule is prepared. The remainder of the week is spent in surgery at the hospital.

Village Teams: Family practice teams bring trunks of medicines and supplies as well and in the course of treating acute illnesses in the villages often encounter people who need surgical care. These patients are referred to the surgical teams working at the hospital. Often the teams are met with busloads of people hoping to receive medical help.

Dental Teams: Dental professionals accompany both the surgical teams and the family practice teams. There is a well-equipped dental clinic at the Hermano Pedro Hospital where general dentistry and extractions are performed and oral hygiene instructions given. Dental professionals who accompany the family practice teams to rural sites concentrate their efforts on pain relief (extractions) and oral hygiene instruction.

Professional Relationships: The professional relationships that develop between U.S. medical and dental personnel and Guatemalan professionals is an added positive impact of the work Faith In Practice is doing. Every year, Faith In Practice endeavors to present post-graduate type learning experiences to the Guatemalan medical community in Antigua and in Guatemala City. Topics have included Ear Infections, Cancer Pain Control, Ovarian Cancer, Knee Surgery, and Hip Replacement Surgery. Guatemalan surgeons are also invited to the OR in Antigua to learn the latest surgical techniques. Faith In Practice believes developing mutual learning and understanding makes sustainable change possible.

Cooperative Efforts: Faith In Practice makes concerted efforts to keep in touch with sister organizations who are working to improve the life and health of the poor in Central America. Much of the needed change that goes beyond any one organization’s scope can come about by combining resources, time, knowledge and energy.

To learn more about Faith in Practice, please visit their website, Facebook page, Twitter page, or blog.

Profile: Clinica Maxeña

Clinica Maxeña, in Santo Tomás, provides medical, dental and optical assistance and limited types of surgery. The clinic operation is made up of various projects that receive support from several donor agencies, including the Diocese of Helena, MT. These projects work together to provide excellent care to those who come to Clinica Maxeña and also those encountered during visits to the outlying communities.

Laboratory: There is a Laboratory to assist the doctor and health promoters in diagnosis and treatment, and is staffed by a health promoter who is trained as a technician. The lab tech performs coprology, urinalysis, and tests for tuberculosis, malaria, typhoid fever, venereal diseases, hematology, and pregnancy.

Pharmacy: The Pharmacy sells a limited number of medicines according to the recommendations of the World Health Organization.

Dental Office: The Dental Office has periodic service to the mission community from groups of American dental practitioners who volunteer their time, service and supplies for a period of time at the Mission.

Prenatal Clinics: Prenatal Clinics are held weekly with a midwife-educator, who also operates our clinic in Samayac. She and the midwives who serve the various communities of the area have constant refresher courses with the goal of reducing maternal-infant mortality.

The Medicinal Plant Project: The Medicinal Plant Project includes a demonstration garden with more than 100 varieties of plants that produces seeds and medicines. The coordinator examines patients and prescribes plant-based medicines. The pharmacy at the project produces and sells about 30 medications in the form of tincture, salve, shampoo, soap, and dried plants for teas or compresses. The team also trains promoters in the communities to grow their own plants for medication and treatment.

Community Health Project: The clinic is developing a Community Health Project which will enable communities to build a local health system whereby they can be fairly self sufficient with the option for referrals to the Clinica Maxeña and other health entities. The emphasis in the CHP is on women and children, including teaching and primary care on occasion.

Special Projects: Two very serious endemic health problems in the Boca Costa area in which the clinic is located are tuberculosis and trachoma. There are two projects to identify, treat, reduce or eliminate these diseases that Clinica Maxeña coordinates with the National Health Ministry and the National Committee against Blindness.

To learn more about the clinic, please visit their website (associated with The Diocese of Helena), or read this article.

New Project: The Hope Alliance Midwife Training Program

Guatemala suffers from higher infant and maternal mortality rates than any other country in Latin America and the Caribbean except Haiti. The issue of maternal mortality is one that continues to go unnoticed, despite the devastating toll being taken on women around the world. Every minute, a woman dies from complications related to pregnancy and childbirth; 500,000 women die each year despite the fact that the majority of these deaths could be prevented if women received care from trained providers.

Lack of healthcare access for many women in the rural highlands of Guatemala is of prevalent concern, as is the lack of skilled birth attendants or certified midwifes. In collaboration with their partnering organization, Fundación Raxche and the Ministry of Health in the District of Izabal, The Hope Alliance has agreed to compliment the Ministry’s curriculum and provide training to a pilot group of certified midwives in clean birthing skills.

Issues that are of primary concern to the Ministry of Health and need to be incorporated as part of their training are: neo-natal tetanus, sepsis (both neo-natal and post-partum), cervical cancer, family planning and the use of oxytocin (this can be bought over the counter) to induce early labor leading to complications and hemorrhages resulting in hysterectomy.

In August 2009, The Hope Alliance shipped 5 clinic modules to the hospital T’Zunun Ha in El Estor. This included an OB/GYN module as a means to bridge the gap between the rural skilled birth attendants and the medical professionals at the clinic. The Hope Alliance has 3 training mannequins to assist with their training program: a neo-natal resuscitation doll, an EVA Gynecologic Manikin and Manikin Obstetric.

Their goal in the summer of 2010 will be to make this first team the exploratory team and establish the base line curriculum, needs and training parameters to compliment the Ministry of Health’s midwife training program. Subsequent teams would then have an established curriculum to build upon and emphasize those areas in which the midwives lack knowledge and training. Five communities have been identified for the pilot program and each of those communities has identified 20-25 midwifes. Each community will select their 2 senior midwifes (in knowledge not necessarily age) to participate as part of the training with their teams. At the conclusion of the training, the senior midwives will return to their communities and train the remaining midwives in what they learned.

In 2007, The Hope Alliance sent a small surgical team to address the most common needs and to show their commitment to the communities of El Estor. One of those surgical components was an OB/GYN team. As a result, the group has in place some necessary essentials for surgery including a portable “mash-type” anesthesiology machine.

Since one of their goals is to bridge the gap between the rural skilled birth attendants and the medical professionals at the clinic, they plan to include in their curriculum a training component involving medical professionals. The group also hopes that, by explaining to the rural midwifes what some of the equipment is used for, they may ease some of the fears some of the rural women have of hospitals.

To learn more about The Hope Alliance, please visit their website.

Announcement: Shalom Foundation Upcoming Trips

The following trips are being sponsored by and/or are associated with The Shalom Foundation. To find out more information, visit their website.

All groups will work in Guatemala City.

Clean Water Trip – Living Waters for the World
Franklin Breakfast Rotary & Kingsport First Presbyterian Church
April 28 – May 3, 2010

Team members will bring clean water systems to Shalom School and The Moore Center for Children’s Health. This team will provide educational literature and classes for students, faculty members and community leaders regarding the importance of clean water and good health. Members will also reach out to the Las Conchas community regarding additional clean water systems for that community and Las Conchas Elementary School. They will spread the Good News as they serve the poor in Guatemala. Led by Dr. John Collins, DDS, Nic Clemmer, Frank Emerson. Contact Allison Bender at abender@theshalomfoundation.org for more information.

Belmont University OT/ PT
May 16 – 22, 2010

For five years, graduate students and faculty members from Belmont University have traveled to Guatemala to provide physical therapy and occupational therapy for children, as well as specialized training for Guatemalan OT/PT students. A team of 40 participants, led by Renee Brown, PT, PhD, Belmont University are planning for another year of service at Hospital Infantil de Infectología y Rehabilitación. The team will also provide instruction to students attending Universidad Mariano Galvez.

Leadership Development Trip, Vanderbilt University
May 21 – 25, 2010

Trip participants will travel with world experts from Vanderbilt University and The Shalom Foundation to learn more about Guatemala and the work being done by Shalom and Vanderbilt in this developing country. The trip will provide a forum for world experts to share their experiences and knowledge of the country, the impact of joint efforts of Vanderbilt and The Shalom Foundation, tours of Shalom Housing worksites, The Moore Center for Children’s Health, Shalom School, and more. Led by Ted Fischer, Director, Latin American Studies, Vanderbilt University; Steve Moore, Chairman, The Shalom Foundation, and Allison Bender, Executive Director, The Shalom Foundation.

Mother to Mother Mission Trip, The Shalom Foundation
May 28 – June 1, 2010

The Shalom Foundation is seeking volunteers who would like to share their love of Christ and children with impoverished women in Guatemala City. This is a great opportunity for mothers to share a wonderful time of service, ministry, spiritual growth and outreach with their own children if they would like to travel together. (Children must be at least 15 to participate.)

The team will prepare for and host a Women’s Health & Wellness Retreat for mothers of Shalom Foundation-sponsored children attending Shalom School. In Guatemala, women are taught very little about basic healthcare and wellness. Poor women rarely see a doctor. Informational classes will be led by medical experts joining the team. It will be special time of learning, bonding, pampering and spiritual renewal for women.

Hendersonville Rotary Dental, Optical & Good Health Clinic
June 12 – 20, 2010

Hendersonville Rotary Club members led by Dr. Bill Taylor and Rip Lebkuecher are planning their second medical trip with The Shalom Foundation in 2010. Dentists, hygienists, eye care professionals, physicians and support team members treated more than 1400 patients while conducting their wellness clinic at Shalom School last year. The Shalom Foundation will be working with all of our Guatemala partners to serve even more individuals this year. Volunteers from this group have participated in medical mission trips to Guatemala for many years.

Housing Mission Trip, The Shalom Foundation
July 2 – 10, 2010

This trip will focus on the construction of homes in the Las Conchas area of Guatemala City, building community with these families and spreading the Good News! Shalom volunteers will also provide a general health and wellness clinic for the community. Participants are welcome from all walks of life. There is a place for everyone! Healthcare workers are encouraged to consider traveling with this team to assist with the clinic. Minimum age requirement is 15 years old.

Housing Mission Trip, The Shalom Foundation
July 30 – August 7, 2010

Pediatric Plastics Surgical Mission Trip, Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital
September 11-19, 2010

Leadership & Partner Development Trip
September Date TBD

Housing Mission Trip, The Shalom Foundation
November, 2010 – date TBD

*All upcoming dates are tentative and subject to change.

Book Review: Pathologies of Power: Health, Human Rights, and the new war on the poor

Dr. Paul Farmer has written an ambitious book in the face of the world’s most stubbornly unsolvable issue: poverty. I first picked up the book after reading the best-selling biography “Mountains Beyond Mountains” by Tracy Kidder, in which Farmer’s travels and experiences with global health are recorded. After getting to know his human side, I was interested to hear about his ideas for social change.

Farmer sets out to prove that it is the structure of society rather than lack of resources that prevent any real social change for the world’s poorest and most vulnerable. He cites this phenomenon as “structural violence”: poverty, inequality as well as more blatant physical violence. The argument is that this kind of oppression isn’t obvious; instead, it is the lack of will for any wealthy country or person to make real, sustainable change in the lives of the poorest of the poor. This leaves them at the mercy of a host of preventable diseases, the elements from lack of proper shelter, and malnutrition.

To illustrate this point, Farmer uses three personal experiences he had: the AIDS epidemic in Haiti, the political violence surrounding the Chiapas in Mexico, and drug-resistant tuberculosis as a form of punishment in Russian prisons. I enjoyed this part of the book the most, as it gave me a clear picture of what structural violence means for real people, rather than as an abstract idea which I felt I’d heard before in bits and pieces.

He goes on to deal directly with the problem as well as his proposed solutions. This part got me fired up, because I agreed with most everything he was saying, but realized at the same time that inequality will most likely continue, since the majority of the wealthy like the status and respect that accompanies their class, and want to keep it that way.

Considering the breadth of topic-as poverty can be traced as the root of the majority of the world’s ills-I was skeptical that this volume could achieve its end: presenting both the extent of the issue as well as a plausible way to approach it. Written in the style of a peer-reviewed journal, it can be tricky at times to fully absorb the meaning and applicability of some of his ideas unless you are seasoned in interpreting that kind of text. I sometimes felt that it was more my personal interest in global health and development that kept me going through some parts rather than the words themselves.

However, I did find it interesting, particularly the way he used the case studies as a lens through which to critique the way society keeps the poor poor, even if we don’t know it. Not light reading, but certainly informative, empowering, and yes, a little depressing.

Profile: Vanderbilt University Center for Latin American Studies

In 2006, The Vanderbilt Center for Latin American Studies (CLAS) was designated a National Resource Center by the U.S. Department of Education. While maintaining one of the strongest concentrations of Brazilianists of any university in the United States, the Center’s renowned faculty also has particular strengths in Mesoamerican anthropology and archaeology, the study of democracy building and economic development, Latin American literature and languages, and African populations in Latin America and the Caribbean. The Center fosters a lively research community on campus by sponsoring colloquia, conferences, films, and a speaker series featuring distinguished scholars and government and business leaders. The Center is lead by Drs. Edward Fischer and Avery Dickens de Giron.

CLAS offers undergraduate major and minors and a M.A. degree in Latin American Studies as well as joint graduate degrees with the business school (MBA/MA) and Law School (LLM/MA). Moreover, the Center offers a popular graduate certificate program and administers summer research awards to students across the university carrying out work in Latin America. They are also one of the select graduate programs approved by the Department of Defense for its Foreign Area Officer training.

CLAS is home to a number of major research and outreach projects in Guatemala, including:

Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital / Shalom Foundation Alliance:

2-3 major surgical missions per year to Guatemala
Guatemalan rotations possible for Vanderbilt pediatric interns
In late 2010, opening the Moore Surgery Center in Guatemala City, an innovative “medical timeshare” for mission trips that will involve local medical students as well.

Center for Latin American Studies program in K’iche’ Mayan:

Funding by the U.S. Department of Education to teach Mayan languages
6 week Vanderbilt/University of Chicago Summer Intensive K’iche’ Program held in Nahaula, Guatemala

Biomedical Engineering:

Service-learning course taught by Cynthia Paschal; students work on medical equipment at Moore Surgery Center and other hospitals in Guatemala
Collaboration with engineering students from the Universidad del Valle

Owen School of Management:

Pyramid Project (led by Bart Victor) students develop strategic planning and business models for Primeros Pasos and other projects in Guatemala
In the last module, students came up with an innovative micro-finance mortgage system and tested a new product to combat malnutrition

Midwifery / School of Nursing:

New international component to the midwife program sends students to work with local midwives and Primeros Pasos

Vanderbilt Cancuén Archaeology Project:

Vanderbilt Cancuén Archaeology Park in Alta Verapaz, Guatemala
Integrating local development and health projects and eco-tourism opportunities

Alternative Spring Break:

Program going to Primeros Pasos clinic in Guatemala every year since 2005, organized through the Office of Active Citizenship (OAC)

Primeros Pasos / InterAmerican Health Alliance:

Based at Vanderbilt, this successful NGO founded and led by VU medical student Brent Savoie offers preventive pediatric care to over 1000 patients a month in rural areas
Opportunities for service-learning trips, medical student emphasis program
CLAS provides the US-based home at Vanderbilt

Conexión Guatemala:

Organization run by CLAS that brings together over 15 humanitarian mission efforts based in Nashville that focus on Guatemala

Medicine, Health, and Society / CLAS VISAGE Course:

VISAGE year-long course Spring/Summer/Fall 2010
Students will spend 6 weeks in Guatemala over the summer of 2010

Institute for Global Health / PEPFAR:

Alfredo Vergara hopes to develop a PEPFAR project in Guatemala with U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)

Institute for Coffee Studies:

Possibilities for collaborations with ANACAFE (the Coffee producers association)

CLAS reaches thousands in Nashville, Tennessee, and the surrounding region through their various outreach programs to the educational, business, medical, and media communities. They have a vibrant K-12 teacher workshop series marked by high attendance and positive feedback; recent topics have included Andean archaeo-astronomy, the Panama Canal, and the art of Guayasamín. They offer Spanish instruction to their Medical School and at Fisk University. They regularly partner with local arts groups and community organizations to sponsor events. They have pioneered an effort to bring together NGOs, faith-based organizations, and academics working in Guatemala to coordinate efforts. They serve as a national resource through a variety of other programs as well, including cultural competency seminars, a film and lecture series, a classroom speakers’ bureau, and a resource lending library.

To learn more about CLAS, please visit their website. To read about their most recent trip, please click here.

Profile: Hope Alliance

Transforming Critical Need into Sustainable Change

The mission of The Hope Alliance is to empower impoverished people with the skills and tools they need to create positive change in the lives of their families and in their villages. The Hope Alliance also educates and exposes volunteers to the situation of those in developing countries. The Hope Alliance partners with active village groups in developing areas of the world to co-create change in quality of life. Local organizations and villages lead projects that include health worker training, medical care, clean water, sanitation projects, economic opportunity (micro-credit) and education projects.

The Hope Alliance assists communities in development, not relief, although it plays an extremely important role in saving lives, it is only temporary and is not sustainable. The communities to whom we offer our help are not necessarily victims of natural or civil catastrophes; they are people who can maintain a subsistence level of living. This means that they have just enough to get by but lack the resources and education to get out of perpetual poverty. Development is simply teaching them the skills they need to help themselves and linking them to resources necessary to progress. We want to make sure that our projects have a measurable, proven positive impact on communities.

“Unless we partner directly with the villagers to empower themselves and create active village participation, even though intentions are good, we will end up with empty medical clinics, empty schools and broken water systems” -Dr. John Hanrahan, Co-founder, The Hope Alliance

Supply Shipments: The Hope Alliance continues to support project areas with shipments of medical supplies and equipment specific to each countries needs and capacity. Our most recent container, which shipped in July of 2009, included five clinic modules for the Hospital T’Zunun Ha in Guatemala. Communities in Peru, Ghana, Vanuatu, Haiti and Ethiopia have also received Hope Alliance shipments of medicine, medical supplies, food and school supplies in years past.

Education Fund: The Hope Alliance administrates the Atitlan Education Resource for Opportunity, or the AERO Fund designated for the youth in Santiago Atitlan, Guatemala. It is their fervent hope that this financial resource can grow and become the mechanism by which many talented and ambitious young folks, who would not otherwise have the opportunity to gain an education or training in a trade or craft, can become successful and contributing members of their society.

Construction Expeditions: The Hope Alliance has strong ties to local Rotary Club and Rotary International, a service organization that works to combat hunger, improve health, sanitation, and education. World Community Service projects is one avenue that promotes collaboration with partnering countries to work on sustainable projects, such as the Biogas digester program in Nepal that transforms waste into a reusable resource for that community. Or the Aguajal Trancayacu project in Tarapoto, Peru that promotes reforestation, restoration and management of the Aguaje.

Medical Expeditions: While the medical clinics conducted by The Hope Alliance have been successful, they have been the catalyst to open the doors to the communities where sustainable projects within the communities have been developed. Under the direction of the Ministries of Health, medical and nurse practitioners along with student volunteers assist local healthcare providers address health issues facing rural villages. Past teams have included Surgical teams that support local hospitals and work collaboratively with local physicians to teach current surgery techniques. Health education teams address the long-term need in local education and preventable illnesses.

Dental Expeditions: Dental hygiene is a growing concern for both young and old alike. Most expeditions focus on extractions instead of restorative work and also on education and improving their diet.

Micro-Credit: This program provides economic opportunity to individuals so they can pull themselves out of poverty. At the same time, creating a more vibrant economic atmosphere and increased market activity which benefits the entire community. The micro-loans provide access to capital and also provide business enterprise training. The Hope Alliance micro-credit programs are in Iquitos, Peru and El Estor, Guatemala.

Vision Pilot Program: The vision pilot program has been designed to complement the World Health Organizations Vision 2020 initiative; the right to sight initiative aimed at prevention and treatment of vision loss through successful interventions and treating preventable impairments, in order to have the greatest possible impact on vision loss worldwide. Village Health workers are trained to identify preventable illnesses and refer individuals to the most appropriate resources available for that area.

To learn more about Hope Alliance, please visit their website.

Profile: Los Medicos Voladores (Flying Doctors)

Los Médicos Voladores (LMV) — in Spanish, the flying doctors — is a volunteer-based nonprofit organization that aims to improve the health and well-being of geographically diverse peoples through education and the provision of no-cost, high-quality medical, dental, and optometric clinics. LMV serves Mexico, Central and South America, and migrant labor populations of the southwestern United States. Since 1975 LMV has offered more than 230 short-term medical, dental, optometry, and other healthcare clinics, treating over 7,000 patients per year.

LMV provides clinics in the following specific geographies: more than 20 villages in the northern Mexican states of Sonora and Baja California, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, the Dominican Republic, and Peru in Latin America; and the Coachella Valley migrant camps in southeastern California

LMV clinics are open to anyone who can reach the clinic during open hours in the areas they serve. And they help improve villagers’ lives not only by treating their immediate health problems, but also by providing lasting tools that empower people to help themselves – including health education, especially for women and children, and clinic equipment for ongoing use by local healthcare professionals. LMV also runs a number of non-clinic projects that strengthen the villages they support through initiatives like education sponsorship, wheeled mobility and other equipment donations, and so on. They are proud to work closely with a broad range of partner organizations, including Rotary, Airline Ambassadors, and local medical and dental schools.

The next medical trip to Guatemala will be from July 31 thru Aug 8, in San Francisco del Alto. A team of 24 people will work Monday through Friday. They always need MD’s and Interpreters. Contact Milt Camp at miltcamp@aol.com. Also see photos from their recent Aug-2009 trip to Guatemala here.

LMV is also involved with a Rotary funded microbank in Santa Inez, just outside of Antigua.

To learm more about LMV, please visit their website.

Profile: Project Concern International/Casa Materna

Project Concern International (PCI) is a non-profit health and humanitarian aid organization dedicated to preventing disease, improving community health, and promoting sustainable development.

PCI began working in Guatemala in 1974, bringing basic health care to Mayan communities around Lake Atitlan. Throughout the 1980s, during the civil war that ravaged Guatemala, PCI trained an extensive network of volunteers and local leaders to deliver health services to families in need. Building on three decades of experience, PCI/Guatemala continues to work with rural communities to improve the lives of vulnerable populations, with a focus on women of reproductive age and children.

Specifically, in 2000, in partnership with a local association of midwives, PCI/Guatemala established the Casa Materna (Mother’s House), an integrated reproductive and maternal health program aimed at reducing maternal and infant morbidity and mortality in the western and central highlands of the country. Casa Materna provides integrated reproductive and maternal and child health care, outreach, and education services, including outpatient clinical services, a pediatric clinic and a 20-bed inpatient facility for women with high-risk pregnancies. Casa Materna is reaching 8,000 women each year with obstetric services, critical care services for maternity patients, family planning services, child nutrition classes, and sanitation trainings.

PCI has also successfully implemented numerous projects in the country designed to increase commercialization opportunities, diversify agricultural practices and improve the health and nutritional status of vulnerable communities.

For more information about PCI, please visit their website, Facebook or Twitter pages.

Profile: Roots & Wings International

Roots and Wings International promotes elementary through university education in rural Guatemala. They work with indigenous youth whose families earn $2 per day growing coffee. Their work is rooted in recognizing the importance of culturally responsive education that empowers students to connect their cultural identity with sustainable social and economic development.

Student Scholarship: Roots & Wings International provides full-tuition university scholarships to indigenous youth from families that earn $2 or less per day. Their scholars come from coffee-growing communities in rural Guatemala, and they are the first in their families to study past elementary school. The students study in cities near their village and remain vested in their communities in Guatemala. RWI require their scholars to attend Roots & Wings International monthly development meetings. These meetings provide the students space to discuss their struggles and their aspirations while also providing an opportunity to apply their education to development issues in their communities.

After-School Elementary Tutoring Program: Sixty percent of the Guatemalan population does not graduate from elementary school, and rural communities suffer from up to 70% illiteracy. RWI’s After-School Elementary Tutoring Program helps children aged 5 to 11 to finish school. Their tutoring center, in the village of Pasac in Nahuala, Solola, about 3½ hours from Guatemala City, serves 250 children. The center is open every weekday, and each student comes in twice weekly to work with tutors in their native language K’iche’ and in Spanish.

Computer Lab: The Computer Lab officially started in May 2009. It has five computers currently available for the students and public in the village of Pasac in Nahuala, Solola (population: 1,500). There has been an overwhelmingly positive response to the Computer Lab program. Children of all ages and adults wait in line for their turn to learn how to use a computer.

Construction of a University Preparatory School: Rural indigenous youth have little access to public schools in Guatemala. The few private schools that do exist are both financially inaccessible and too few in number to satisfy the demand for education in the region. Roots & Wings International is raising funds to construct a university preparatory school in the rural highlands of Nahualá, Sololá in the next three years. This school will meet some of the demand for education among impoverished youth in the region, and its curriculum will be based in the culture of the communities.

Development Meetings: Each month, Roots & Wings International hosts a community development meeting attended by their students and other youth from the region. Because the long-term goals of Roots & Wings revolve around sustainable development, they believe it is important to provide a space for their students to bring ideas to life by applying them to their individual communities. Meeting themes have included environmental degradation, business development, entrepreneurship, political involvement, family education, and AIDS/HIV education. The meeting themes are selected by their students based on what they perceive to be the particular needs of their communities. They invite an expert from around Guatemala to speak at each meeting on the chosen theme, and encourage their students to engage the issues. This forum gives their students the space to brainstorm about how to use their education to confront real issues faced in their own communities.

Counseling: Students receive counseling in their native language, K’iche’. Higher education is uncharted territory for most of the communities where they work, and their students face overt discrimination in the classroom because of their indigenous identity. Accordingly, Roots & Wings International employs a full-time college counselor to provide technical and emotional support to the students in their native language, K’iche’. The following support is provided, academic tutoring, home visits once per semester, advocacy for the students when encountering any difficulties at school, family counseling to encourage family support throughout the academic process, and office hours held for counseling of their scholars and any youth in the region.

To learn more about Roots and Wings, please visit their website.

Profile: Refuge International

Refuge International (RI) is a compassionate 501(c)3 volunteer organization dedicated to improving the lives of families and individuals through the collaborative development of sustainable programs in areas where healthcare, adequate nutrition, clean water and education are lacking or non-existent. Refuge International also provides opportunities for mentoring of students who wish to become involved in humanitarian efforts.

RI believes that all of humanity is of equal worth and should have their essential needs met without regard to culture, ideology or religion. RI’s Guatemala program covers the following areas:

Education: Guatemala has the lowest literacy rate in Latin America. Through support of existing educational programs, their organization hopes to improve the level of education in Guatemala. Refuge currently supports 2 full-time teachers in Sarstun. The enrollment of children has more than tripled since the teachers have begun their work. A second school has been built on property owned by Refuge International. It has been exciting to see the growing commitment to education in Sarstun. There is a great need for all types of school supplies in Guatemala. Supplies are collected and shipped to schools in the areas where Refuge is currently working.
Water: Every 8 seconds a child dies from waterborne disease. Through the development of safe and adequate water supplies, RI hopes to improve the health of those affected. RI has two drills in the country and are working to establish a team of drillers to “punch holes” in the earth all over Guatemala.
Health Care: Refuge International works with local organizations to provide basic medical and surgical care where needed. In 2010, Refuge International will hold clinics in San Raymundo (February and October), Chocola (March, July and September), and Sarstun (March).
Deworming Program: Refuge International’s goal of deworming children will benefit the overall health of those treated. Intestinal worms flourish in malnourished children. Parasites prevent the absorption of nutrients. By ridding children of parasites, the food they are given can be more readily utilized to grow and fight off childhood illnesses.
Nutrition: Refuge International is seeking support for feeding programs in Guatemala. They distributed over 1 million meals to those who were affected by Hurricane Stan in 2005 with the help of USAID.

To learn more about Refuge International, please visit their website. To read about a recent Refuge International midwife education trip, please click here.

Profile: Ak’Tenamit

Ak’ Tenamit means “New Village” in the Q’eqchi Mayan language, because their organization is transforming life in the Q’eqchi villages of eastern Guatemala. Those villages are located around the Río Dulce, far from the nearest road – most are reached by a boat trips and hikes through the rain forest – and they lack electricity, running water and basic sanitation. When Ak’ Tenamit was founded in 1992 by a small group of foreign volunteers and village leaders, most of the communities it serves lacked access to medical care and had only rudimentary schools, if any. Few students studied to the sixth grade, and most girls dropped out by third or fourth grade. Illiteracy rates were 70%–80%, and malnutrition, parasites, and various curable diseases were common.

Ak’ Tenamit consequently began improving village schools, providing teacher training, and coordinating donations of school supplies. The local people built a riverside clinic while foreign medical volunteers began visiting villages and training health promoters, while others taught groups of women to make paper from cornhusks and other waste. Since then, those initiatives have evolved to include preventative medicine programs, promotion of education for girls, a floating dental clinic, a secondary school that offers practical training in sustainable tourism and development, a network of cooperatives that produces and markets an array of handcrafts, and specific programs promoting gender equality, environmental protection and preservation of Q’eqchi culture.

Ak’ Tenamit now provides basic healthcare to approximately 6,000 people in 41 villages and has over 450 students in its an innovative secondary school – the Fr. Tom Moran Center – where the national curriculum has been adapted to the students’ rural reality, and includes hands-on training at the school’s farm, handicraft center, gift shops and restaurants. Graduates work in Ak’ Tenamit’s programs – promoting sustainable development in their communities; or for other nongovernmental organizations.

Their original project site is located in the village of Barra de Lámpara, on the banks of Río Dulce, a 40-minute boat trip upriver from the town of Livingston. Its facilities include a medical clinic, floating dental clinic, primary school, training center, facilities, and dormitories. A short boat ride away, in Tatín, is a larger site with the secondary school, boys’ dorms, an organic farm, a handicraft training center, and an ecotourism center complete with gift shop, restaurant and bakery. The project also has a restaurant and gift shop in the town of Livingston.

While money from the restaurants help support the project, they are also part of the secondary school’s tourism training program, since they are run by students, whereas the gift shops sell the work of artisan cooperatives that Ak’ Tenamit has helped organize.

To learn more about Ak’Tenamit, please visit their website. To learn about the Guatemala Tomorrow Fund, a non-denominational, non-profit (501 C-3) organization dedicated exclusively to raising funds and providing logistical support for Ak’ Tenamit, please click here.

Profile: Proyecto Payaso

The Asociación Payasos Atz’anem K’oj (“The Clowns”) gathers, trains and resources groups of youth peer educators and people living with HIV in sexual and reproductive health. These groups carry out the Clowns’ communication projects in sexual health, HIV and Aids and STIs to vulnerable populations (in rural indigenous areas, prisons, borders and ports, and others) through arts – street theatre, mural painting, clowning and Theatre of the Oppressed – participatory workshops, and population-specific education materials. The artistic aspects of the strategy are based on principles of communication for social change, non-formal education and human rights. An essential strategic focus throughout the life of the project has been the training of an activist pool of human resources.

The Payasos have continuously worked in Sololá since 2001, where their initial street-theatre-based strategy was piloted and evaluated with funds provided by the Pan-American Health Organization. Since then they have brought a variety of alternative sexual health communication services to over 900 communities in Guatemala and elsewhere in Central America. Their network extends to Peru, Jamaica, Venezuela, Mexico, Honduras and Nicaragua, where South-South exchanges have generated successful partnerships (visiting professionals have, after working with the Clowns in Guatemala for several months and jointly raised funds, implemented replications of their strategy in their own countries).

The project’s four strategies include:

Information and Communication: Street theatre has proven a particularly lively and effective way of communicating information on sensitive subjects to large numbers of people. Street theatre and clown shows have been developed, implemented and refined by the Clowns™ field teams since 2001 in over five hundred vulnerable communities and in fifteen languages, and have benefited from the input of a network of highly qualified theatre, sexual and reproductive health, and project management professionals. The Clowns™ 75-minute street theatre presentation, covering key information about HIV transmission, and prevention is appropriate for all ages and backgrounds, and condoms are explicitly named as a highly effective prevention method for sexually active individuals. The shows have generated considerable debate at the grassroots. Since 2002, the groups of Youth Peer Educators have developed their own shows, which cover basic transmission and prevention information, as well as essential messages of solidarity with PLWHA (People Living with HIV and AIDS) and destigmatizing messages designed to reduce fear and spread information on human rights, including the rights of HIV+ people.

Participatory Workshops: These are structured 90-minute workshop where HIV/AIDS-related issues are examined in depth with groups capable of multiplying the information and impact of the intervention. Workshops are participatory allowing people from a variety of educational backgrounds and learning styles to examine the issues, including through the use of hypothetical situations and risk analysis. Specific situations are discussed with sex workers, and others whose occupations expose them to risky situations. The educational methodology will be systematized and strengthened during the life of the project through ongoing training and discussion, both within the field teams, within their national networks and at international forums with extended networks. The messages both technical and political, that are communicated at the grassroots will therefore reflect the cutting edge in how people directly affected experience these issues and articulate their responses.

Development of Educational Materials: The Project has pioneered the development of HIV print based materials for low literacy populations in indigenous languages. Materials are developed along strict guidelines that involve validation by the beneficiary communities and broad consultations as to essential messages.

Youth Peer Educator Training and Support: Over the years, the youth peer education program has evolved into a major strategy of the Clowns. Currently, four groups operate under Proyecto Payaso, each with their own shows, geographical areas and beneficiary populations. Youth peer educator theatre troupes receive training and funds from the Clowns, are supported with materials and transport, participate in financial management and monitoring of field activities. They manage and coordinate themselves autonomously. Programs specifically for YPEs include Training the Trainer and annual youth theatre festivals against AIDS and AIDS-related stigma and discrimination. Exchange visits will be arranged between YPE theatre groups and between sister organizations (in Guatemala and regionally South-South with Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador and Mexico) to enable sharing of skills and experiences.

For more information about Proyecto Payaso, please visit their website. To read about their legal status and funding sources, please click here.

Profile: Thirteen Threads (Oxlajuj B’atz)

Thirteen Threads (Oxlajuj B’atz’) provides training and educational opportunities to Maya women’s groups throughout rural areas of Guatemala. More than 400 women in 22 groups currently participate in the project. They organize workshops, classes, and community follow-ups, as well as host two interns per year through their Young Mayan Women Internship Program

What does the name, Oxlajuj B’atz’, stand for? Oxlajuj means thirteen in K’achikel, and is symbolized by three dots above two horizontal bars. The number 13 is very significant to the Mayas. The ancient Mayan Calendar system has 13 moons (or months) and is divided into 13-year cycles. B’atz’ is the first day of the Mayan Calendar. It is the day of the beginning of life, of mother earth, of women and all of nature. Batz is the weaver of history. It represents the umbilical cord between Humanity and Earth. B’atz also symbolizes the life of a human being until the thread is cut. Thus, it is the thread of life. Together Oxlajuj B’atz’ means Thirteen Threads.

Their programs are concentrated in the following four areas:

Artisan Skills: Thirteen Threads provides opportunities for women to learn new skills and improve upon those that they already possess with the goal of developing more work opportunities, better income-earning potential and greater access to local and global market.

Examples of workshops:

Sewing classes and machine embroidery
Natural dying of threads
Soap-making
Pine needle basketry
Rug-hooking using recycled materials
Candle-making

Health and Well-Being: Thirteen Threads offers workshops and resources on preventative health measures so that members can improve their own health and that of their families.

Examples of workshops and projects include:

Nutrition
Potable water project using Eco-filters
Women’s reproductive and general health (e.g. cervical exams, eye exams)
Ergonomic bench project for weavers
First aid and natural disaster preparedness
Medicinal plant and herb gardens
Production of natural soaps & shampoos

Democracy and Group Organization: Thirteen Threads promotes participatory processes and team-building, empowering women to become more active in their groups, as well as in their families and communities.

Examples of workshops include:

Self-esteem and leadership
Conflict resolution and peace-building
Gender issues and women’s rights
Group agreements and working in groups
Forming & strengthening Boards of Directors

Small Business Skills: Courses provide basic business and administration skills to oversee personal finances and to promote the sustainability and self-management of the groups.

Examples of workshops include:

Marketing and production processes
Accounting and price calculations
The buying process
Group administration and funding
Micro-credit lending

To learn more about this group, please visit their website, Facebook page, or Twitter page.

Profile: Seeds of Help

Seeds of Help Foundation is a private not-for-profit organization that provides grassroots-level assistance to improve the lives of people in developing nations through educational programs and construction projects. Currently, Seeds of Help Foundation serves 30 remote communities in a department (region) known as Huehuetenango, located in the western highlands of Guatemala where families survive by subsistence farming.

Here in the department of Huehuetenango, their organization concentrates its efforts on working with women’s groups. They believe that women – the central-binding force of the family unit – possess the greatest potential to make positive changes for future generations. Through these women’s groups and their custom-designed development programs, they teach about family planning, health and nutrition, medicinal herbs; hold cooking classes to introduce alternative cooking methods and recipes; and help in coordinating school development and community organization.

When funding is available, Seeds of Help also undertakes construction projects such as the building of the appropriate technology shower, the appropriate technology stove, small ovens, water tanks, irrigation tanks, latrines and water pumps.

To learn more about Seeds of Help, please visit their website.

Profile: Faith In Action Ministries

Faith In Action (FIA) is a 501(c)(3) Christian organization designed to target isolated, remote people who have become lost and stagnant within their developing country. They primarily focus on mountainous highlands and the swampy waterways of Rio Dulce in Guatemala, Central America. Faith in Action takes the Good News into communities that have no church and have never heard the gospel of Jesus Christ.

For the people in these extremely remote villages they construct safe houses, churches, schools, clinics, and facilitate all types of economic and agricultural developments. They work with volunteer teams to bring in the expertise to build major infrastructure improvements to areas that are completely isolated. Some of the things that they bring to these people are bridges over swamps to facilitate their contact to the outside world, provide fresh water by drilling wells, and construct churches, schools, clinics.

Education: When Faith In Action started working in the highland villages there were only 5 children going to school. On the rare occasions he even showed up, the state-sponsored teacher organizing the classes was more interested in drinking alcohol than teaching the children. After several drunken visits to the village school, the teacher reported back to the Ministry of Education that there was no interest in education anywhere in the region. He told the council to close the school down.

Michael and Rocky Beene, on behalf of FIA, asked the Ministry of Education not to give up trying to educate the children in the mountains. They asked the counsel for one more chance to teach the local children. Michael and Rocky were even willing to provide a full-time teacher (including paying salary). The Ministry of Education agreed to allow Faith In Action to sponsor the school and bring in a private teacher for the remainder of the school year. By the end of the first school year Faith In Action had 35 children attending a new school located on the mission in Matasano. Their once little school has now grown to over 125 children, however, that is still only ¼ of the children from the community. The results are in and the response is conclusive, there is a huge desire for education in the mountains of Guatemala.

Nutrition: As a stimulant to keep children in school, they have started a reward program. Those children who stay in school for a month will receive nutritional drink, beans, corn, rice, and sugar. This is seen by a child’s parents as a form of a job so as to motivate the parents to let them study.

Small children usually have to survive only on corn tortillas – these are the children that many times do not survive. Parents often bring very young children to the clinic for them to treat for a wide variety of illness when the root cause is simply malnutrition. Having a place where they may educate the families of small children about nutrition and provide support for those in immediate need is imperative.

Agriculture: Subsistence farming has been practiced here for generations, stripping the mountains bare and leaving behind depleted earth that has little agricultural value. Corn or beans are planted on the same hill year after year and ruins the soil. Today, FIA is promoting permanent cash crops that will not only improve yield but help conserve the water shed for the entire region. Some of these advancements in agriculture include citrus, macadamia nuts, coffee, and fruit that yield four or five times the income of traditional harvests.

They teach composting and vermiculture as an alternative to chemical fertilizers in their soil. They buy coffee crops from the very plants they planted years ago and produce some of the world’s best organic coffee right in their mission. In their greenhouses they graft many types of seedlings onto strong rootstock and patiently nurture them until they are ready to be planted in the fields. Diversity and sustainable ideas in agriculture are improving the lives of the people they minister to. The amount of land needed to sustain a family is decreasing, and the quality of life is improving.

Housing: Most of the people in the villages where they minister do not have the ability to provide safe, clean housing for their families. Many children sleep on dirt floors. They cook over open fires. They eat a diet of mostly corn tortillas and usually have no fresh water. Along with the villagers and teams that have come to pour out their lives, they have been able to construct concrete homes that replace mud or bamboo huts, build bridges over swamps, and construct roads through rough mountain terrain. This links the local people with the developing world around them and enables commerce. They have dug wells and built latrines, schools, and churches. The playgrounds that Faith in Action has built encourage an atmosphere of friendship and love between the children and help to combat the long history of family feuding. The stoves project was initiated to halt life-threatening lung diseases. They have piped water from a fresh spring five miles through the mountains. The villagers now have clean water in their own homes for bathing, washing clothes, and cooking. All of these projects help develop a sense of community while teaching various trades

Medical & Dental: Faith In Action takes medical and dental teams into areas that have never seen a doctor or a dentist. Their teams suture wounds and pull teeth and then give them their teeth back through dentures. The teams go by boat up the tributaries and hike into the villages so that these people will know how extravagant God’s love is for those that only His eyes see.

To learn more about FIA, please visit their website.

Profile: Guatemala Healing Hands Foundaiton

The Guatemala Healing Hands Foundation (GHHF) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the quality and availability of health care in Guatemala through education, surgery, and therapy. Specializing in the treatment of congenital and hand injuries, they aim to reach Guatemalan children and adults through medical missions led by a team of specialized and skilled surgeons, therapists, and volunteers.

GHHF offers physicians, therapists, nurses, students, and volunteers the opportunity to take part in a cross cultural educational experience. GHHF aims to both educate the local medical providers and supply specialized care for the needed hands of this poor country. They hold a two day, bilingual conference; the purpose of which is to provide education that will, overtime, help the Guatemalan people to be able to care for their own with the latest medical techniques.

GHHF sends qualified professionals to Guatemala to train the local healthcare providers in hand surgery and hand therapy. These highly skilled volunteers come from across the globe to participate in GHHF. GHHF also welcomes volunteers of all ages and backgrounds who are looking for a multicultural educational experience and wish to lend a hand in a country that greatly needs their help.

On their 2009 trip, GHHF screened 174 patients, operated on 68, evaluated 190 therapy patients, fabricated 168 splints, and followed up on past patients.

Since the establishment of GHHF in 2004, their teams of dedicated volunteers have successfully:

Evaluated 597 patients for hand surgery and therapy (at screening day);
Completed surgery on 263 patients;
Fabricated 622 splints;
Brought one child to New Mexico to receive extensive hand surgery;
Brought one child to Shriners for microsurgery; and
Conducted workshops and conferences for over 1,875 people (doctors, therapists, and students).

To learn more about this group, please visit their website.

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