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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.
 Action Against Hunger’s 4,600+ field staff work in over 40 countries to carry out innovative, lifesaving programs in nutrition, food security and livelihoods, and water, sanitation and hygiene. Their programs reach some five million people a year, restoring dignity, self-sufficiency, and independence to vulnerable populations around the world.
Action Against Hunger’s nutrition programs treat and prevent acute malnutrition. Launched most often during times of crisis, their programs center on the evaluation of nutritional needs, the treatment and prevention of acute malnutrition, technical training and support for local staff, and capacity building with national ministries and government structures. The contexts for their programs can be as varied as the crises: from rural mountain villages, to ethnically divided cities, to the confines of overcrowded relocation camps for internally displaced peoples.
To read more about Action Against Hunger, please visit their website. You can also follow the group on Facebook or Twitter. To read about their response to Tropical Storm Agatha, please read the excerpt below. To read the article in its entirety, please click here.
GUATEMALA CITY, GUATEMALA-In the aftermath of tropical storm Agatha, global humanitarian organization Action Against Hunger | ACF International is providing emergency relief to 50,000 people in the hard-hit region of Escuintla, Guatemala, where severe flooding has destroyed homes, contaminated drinking water, and threatened food supplies for thousands of families. The tropical storm battered the region on June 1st, leaving over 250 Guatemalans dead or missing and displacing at least 125,000 others.
Action Against Hunger is responding to the immediate needs of the affected population, helping families left homeless by the storm relocate to shelters and other safe spaces; distributing emergency food provisions of corn, beans, sugar, oil, and protein & vitamin supplements; and providing tools to assist the local population with clean-up efforts. Teams have also begun rehabilitating damaged wells and restoring safe water in areas where supplies have been contaminated by the flooding. Rapid assessments of the population’s food and water needs are ongoing…
Click here to read the rest of the article, or here to read more about Tropical Storm Agatha.
 Kids Alive International is a Christian faith mission dedicated to rescuing orphans and vulnerable children – meeting their spiritual, physical, educational and emotional needs. Kids Alive provides children with the love and care every child deserves, and raises them to be contributing members of their society and witnesses to their family and community.
The Oasis: This residential care facility began in 1999 and has grown into a campus that currently has five completed homes, with one more home being built. The Oasis campus, located west of Guatemala City, includes a school, computer lab, offices, a library, a great hall, the children’s homes, two Independence Homes (for girls over 18, transitioning out of their care and into the community), and some staff housing including a guest house for Service Teams.
Eight to ten girls reside in each home with Guatemalan house parents. The majority of the 40 girls have been rescued by Guatemalan authorities out of abusive home-life situations. At The Oasis, these girls receive the spiritual, emotional and physical healing necessary to recover.
Source of Hope Care Center: The Source of Hope Care Center opened its doors in July, 2006, in the town of Zapote – a remote area where food, work, and education are scarce. This ministry is a partnership between Kids Alive and Iglesia Galilea, a local church. It began with forty preschoolers and has since grown to 100 children from preschool to fourth grade. Here they receive a solid education, health services and a nutrition program – often the only meals they receive each day. A new building has just been completed where they plan to expand to sixth grade and develop community outreach programs. Kids Alive and Iglesia Galilea are working to develop nutrition, education and discipleship programs for the children and their parents as they believe that the Gospel can transform this village.
To learn more about Kids Alive, please visit their website. Or click here for more information about forming a Medical Mission Team to help children. Latest news and updates can be followed on their Facebook page.
 HELPING HANDS Medical Missions provide short-term trips by medical personnel to poor areas throughout the developing world to provide medical attention in the fullness of the Catholic tradition. Services provided include: surgeries, dental care, physical therapy, consultations, distribution of medications, house calls, and Natural Family Planning courses.
Our HELPING HANDS Medical Missionaries also take part in the mission’s spiritual program of daily prayer, Mass, meditation, classes on the Church’s teachings in the field of bio-ethics, and door-to-door evangelization visits.
The group plans to send a team to Santa María de Jesús in Sacatepéquez from October 23-31, 2009. From March 19-27, 2010, the group will be in Escuintla.
On the group’s last medical mission to Guatemala, there were 36 individuals on the medical team, serving 2,100 patients. They performed 74 surgeries, and saw 418 dental cases. A variety of surgeries were performed, including gall bladder, inguinal and abdominal hernias, tonsillectomies, septal deviations and a variety of cysts were removed from patients.
For more information about Helping Hands, please click here.
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