Since June 2002, Pop Wuj has offered a Medical Spanish Program for medical students, providers, public health professionals, and other healthcare practitioners (e.g., doctors, nurses, paramedics, midwifery, and physical therapists). For years they have attracted a growing number of healthcare students and professionals who would like to learn Medical Spanish. The Medical Spanish Program provides [...]
Tag Archives: General Medicine
Profile: Global Health Missions – UPDATED
Posted by Laura on July 25, 2010
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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 [...]
Profile: Emmaus Medical Mission
Posted by Laura on July 25, 2010
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In 2001, a small group of doctors, nurses and volunteers traveled on the first medical mission to Sumpango, a small village in Guatemala, Central America. Their mission then and now is to provide quality medical care, medicines and vitamins free of charge for humanitarian purposes and further enhance goodwill of the United States in Latin [...]
Profile: Mayan Hope
Posted by Laura on July 24, 2010
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Mayan Hope is a non-profit corporation dedicated to providing educational, nutritional, medical, ecological, and other needed services to indigenous families, villages, and abandoned or abused children of Guatemala and other Latin American nations. They are a direct and hands-on charitable organization meaning that, as such, they work in close cooperation and side-by-side with the people [...]
Profile: ASSCA (Social Services Association – German Cooperative)
Posted by Laura on July 16, 2010
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ASSCA (Social Services Association – German Cooperative) is a non-profit institution that, through scientific cooperation has brought preventive and curative healthcare, along with other forms of development, to the neediest Guatemalan communities. These services have been delivered through the use of human capital and technology. The vision of ASSCA is to become one of the [...]
Profile: Heart to Heart
Posted by Laura on June 15, 2010
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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. [...]
Profile: Clinica Comunitaria Daniel Comboni
Posted by Laura on June 1, 2010
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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 [...]
Profile: Wuqu’ Kawoq
Posted by Laura on May 26, 2010
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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 [...]
Profile: Wuqu' Kawoq
Posted by Laura on May 26, 2010
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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 [...]
Profile: Primeros Pasos
Posted by Laura on May 20, 2010
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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 [...]
Profile: Save the Children / Felix Aguilar Ramírez
Posted by Laura on May 10, 2010
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Save the Children and the Ad Council are working together to mobilize citizen action in the U.S. to help local health workers help save more children worldwide. Eye on the Future by Felix Aguilar Ramírez (local health worker in Xachmochán Village, Guatemala): This week I visited several children with diarrhea. Among them, a few already [...]
Profile: Project HANDS
Posted by Laura on May 8, 2010
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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 [...]
Profile: Faith in Practice
Posted by Laura on April 15, 2010
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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 [...]
Book Review: Pathologies of Power: Health, Human Rights, and the new war on the poor
Posted by Kari on April 4, 2010
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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 [...]
Profile: Vanderbilt University Center for Latin American Studies
Posted by Laura on April 3, 2010
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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 [...]
Profile: Hope Alliance
Posted by Laura on April 1, 2010
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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 [...]
Profile: Los Medicos Voladores (Flying Doctors)
Posted by Laura on March 31, 2010
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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 [...]
Profile: CasaSito
Posted by Laura on March 24, 2010
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CasaSito increases educational opportunities in rural areas of Guatemala so that indigenous people living in poverty can attend school, receive quality instruction, and obtain the skills they need to improve their lives. CasaSito has two approaches for addressing educational needs, depending on location. In the Department of Sacatepéquez, they offer scholarships and work closely with [...]
Profile: Refuge International
Posted by Laura on March 23, 2010
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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. [...]
Profile: Ak’Tenamit
Posted by Laura on March 23, 2010
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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, [...]
Profile: Ak'Tenamit
Posted by Laura on March 23, 2010
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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, [...]
Profile: Partnership in Women’s Ministries
Posted by Laura on March 22, 2010
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Partnership in Women’s Ministries (PWM) is a partnership of ministries serving abused and abandoned women in Guatemala. This partnership comes to fill a huge void in Guatemala, where women lack total control of their lives, and are powerlessly subjected to lives of misery. These women, who are lacking resources and education, are desperately trying to survive and provide for their families. [...]
Profile: Partnership in Women's Ministries
Posted by Laura on March 22, 2010
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Partnership in Women’s Ministries (PWM) is a partnership of ministries serving abused and abandoned women in Guatemala. This partnership comes to fill a huge void in Guatemala, where women lack total control of their lives, and are powerlessly subjected to lives of misery. These women, who are lacking resources and education, are desperately trying to survive and provide for their families. [...]
Profile: Gesundheit!
Posted by Laura on March 22, 2010
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The Gesundheit Institute began as a group of twenty friends, including three doctors, who moved into a six-bedroom home and called it a free hospital. The hospital was open 24 hours a day and 7 days a week for all manner of medical problems from birth to death. 500-1000 patients were seen each month, with [...]
Profile: De Casas a Hogares (From Houses to Homes)
Posted by Laura on March 19, 2010
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From Houses to Homes (FHTH) aims to strengthen community harmony in highland Guatemala by building lasting, healthy homes, improving access to health care and education, and inspiring participation between the poor and civil society. From Houses to Homes is a New Jersey-based nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization founded in September 2004 to build homes and improve the [...]