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 Project HANDS is a group of people whose goal is to provide healthcare, education and other support to those who, by chance of birth, have lives less fortunate than their own. Their projects are aimed at improving the quality of rural Mayan life by providing healthcare and education.
Healthcare: Because the Maya have little or no access to medical care, the group sends medical teams to run outreach clinics, and surgical teams to perform elective surgery. As an extension to their idea of bringing surgery to the patients, they are working on a long term project to build a small surgical facility or hospitalito in a rural area.
Their trips usually go to rural northern Guatemala, to the departments of Alta Verapaz, Baja Verapaz and Quiche. On these trips they work closely with their affiliate Partner for Surgery (PfS), a US based NGO. PfS does all the local ground logistics for the trips and Project HANDS provides a small group of about 5-6 people to run the clinics. These clinics are set up in outlying rural areas where the focus is to find patients who need surgery. However, they also bring a small pharmacy with them and try to help all patients who come to the clinics. The patients who require surgery are then scheduled to have their procedures done either by the next Project HANDS surgical team or other volunteer surgical teams.
The group’s next trips to Guatemala will be:
- October, 2010 – Triage trip to El Quiche
- November, 2010 – Surgery trip to El Quiche
Education: The majority of Mayan women are homemakers, wives and mothers. However, many have much more to offer their families and communities and wish they could. With the Guatemalan healthcare system desperately sagging and in need of everything from equipment, supplies, medications and professionals (throughout the whole country but especially within the indigenous population), it seems a perfect fit to marry these women with careers in the healthcare sector. When twenty one year old Carmen worked with the group as a Q’eqchi translator in one of their outreach clinics, they saw her potential. Upon asking her if she would like to be a nurse she smiled shyly and said “If only…” implying it was something completely out of her reach. But why should it be? That was enough to start the group thinking, and led to Project HANDS funding young women to continue their education and go on to nursing school.
To find out more about Project HANDS, please visit their website.
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.
To visit the Reading village website, please click here.
Belief Statement: Every child should be able to grow up free to express their fullest self, give what they have to contribute to their families, their communities, their countries and the world. Access to books, the ability to read, and to think critically and imaginatively are fundamental to the full development of individuals and society.
Vision: Their vision is of a proud and thriving Guatemala that loves to read, where children grow up able to realize their full potential.
Mission: With a focus on children, they work collaboratively with the residents of impoverished villages to create programs that develop a culture of reading.
To read further about some of the children helped by Reading Village, check out their blog.
Scholarships
Public school is not free in Guatemala. In the communities where Reading Village works only 25% of the children study beyond the sixth grade. Reading Village has a scholarship fund you can donate to which has a double impact. It keeps a student in school, and that student gives time in return running reading activities with younger children in the community. Their scholars not only receive funding for school, they also provide leadership training, including field trips outside their community and opportunities to meet other student leaders in other communities. It is their desire to develop these young people into community leaders who will take ownership of creating a new future for themselves and their community.
To visit the Reading Village website, please click the following link.
 Agape in Action, Inc. is a tax exempt, nonprofit 501(c)(3) public charity organization with headquarters located just outside of Houston, Texas. They conduct rural medical clinics in impoverished areas of the Quiché region. Clinics are held in churches, schools, and on occasion, in an actual medical facility, or where the need arises. Their mission is to care for physical ailments and to go beyond the stethoscope to minister to the spiritual and emotional needs of the indigenous Maya in the mountainous Quiché province of the Central Highlands of Guatemala.
They accomplish this by working in close cooperation with local medical officials and hospital facilities. They support pastors in rural areas with medical clinics in their churches, as well as join with other missionaries to reach deep into remote areas to hold medical clinics and show the Jesus Film. Their dorm serves as a facility where they host visiting medical missionary teams that provide surgical care to those who would otherwise go without treatment. They provide training and experience for visiting medical students from the United States and financially support deserving Guatemalan students in medical and nursing schools.
Agape in Action hosts medical and surgery teams from the U. S. who volunteer their time and expertise to perform surgeries at Santa Elena National Hospital, as well as help conduct rural clinics in surrounding towns.
Agape in Action has grown to be accepted as a vital part of the local Santa Cruz community. To a large degree this is because they are closely identified with their partners who are local pastors, educators, medical professionals and other missionaries all working together. Mission teams from the United States have returned over many years and forged relationships that remain strong. They invest and work hard in the community because they are most effective when they combine their talents with those of others who deeply care.
Work has been completed on the expansion of the Agape in Action dorm facility which added over 1,600 square feet of living space, comprised of 4 additional bedrooms, 2 living room areas and 4 new bathrooms. This addition is designed as dual purpose, as it can be used as either 2 separate apartment units or as additional dorm rooms for teams. The current facility can accommodate 24 individuals which will increase to 40 after the expansion is complete. A covered carport has also been added.
They ship medical supplies to their Quiché facility for their mission needs as well as donate supplies and equipment to the Santa Elena National Hospital and other health care providers.
To learn more about Agape in Action, please visit their website.
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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.
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