Curamericas Global partners with underserved communities to make measurable and sustainable improvements in their health and wellbeing. Since 1983, they have been working to reduce infant, child, and maternal mortality rates in regions that lack basic health services. They also organize short-term volunteer trips to their project sites in Guatemala, Bolivia, Haiti and Liberia, where [...]
Tag Archives: Public Health
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: Water for the Americas
Posted by Laura on May 26, 2010
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Water for the Americas is a nonprofit, non-governmental organization founded in 2002 as a publicly supported charity. Their charter is to assist communities in the Americas in evaluating, developing and protecting water resources to ensure safe, sustainable water supplies and improve the living conditions and quality of life for people. They work directly with the [...]
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: Engineers Without Borders
Posted by Laura on April 28, 2010
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Dubbed the “Blueprint Brigade,” by Time Magazine, Engineers Without Borders-USA (EWB-USA) grew from little more than a handful of members in 2002 to over 12,000 today. EWB-USA has over 350 projects in over 45 developing countries around the world including water, renewable energy, sanitation and more. These projects are completed in partnership with local communities [...]
Profile: The Borlaug Institute / Texas A&M
Posted by Laura on April 14, 2010
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The Borlaug Institute provides the global outreach of Texas A&M Agriculture. Their faculty, scientists, and students are involved in over 100 countries around the world to better international agriculture. Funded by the USDA, the Borlaug has implemented a three-year agricultural extension program to benefit the indigenous Mayan communities in Guatemala. Agriculture in Guatemala: Technology, Education, and Commercialization [...]
Profile: The Borlaug Institute / Texas A&M
Posted by Laura on April 14, 2010
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The Borlaug Institute provides the global outreach of Texas A&M Agriculture. Their faculty, scientists, and students are involved in over 100 countries around the world to better international agriculture. Funded by the USDA, the Borlaug has implemented a three-year agricultural extension program to benefit the indigenous Mayan communities in Guatemala. Agriculture in Guatemala: Technology, Education, and Commercialization [...]
Profile: Clinica Maxeña
Posted by Laura on April 12, 2010
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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 [...]
New Project: The Hope Alliance Midwife Training Program
Posted by Laura on April 5, 2010
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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 [...]
Announcement: Shalom Foundation Upcoming Trips
Posted by Laura on April 5, 2010
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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 [...]
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: Project Concern International/Casa Materna
Posted by Laura on March 25, 2010
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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 [...]
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: Rotary Club of Le Roy – Water Filter Project
Posted by Laura on March 23, 2010
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Water, a necessity of life, is the commodity we can’t live without, yet one that over a billion people lack. They lack an adequate source and purity. Hundreds of children in Guatemala die each year from water borne disease. In the department of Izabal in eastern Guatemala, there are 4000 families, about 25,000 people who [...]
Profile: Proyecto Payaso
Posted by Laura on March 14, 2010
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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) [...]
Profile: Student Association for International Water Issues
Posted by Laura on March 10, 2010
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The Student Association for International Water Issues, or SAIWI is a student organization at the University of Nevada, Reno, whose mission is to develop an understanding of global water issues and promote community empowerment through education and water resources development in developing countries. SAIWI’s mission is to develop an understanding of global water issues and [...]
Profile: Thirteen Threads (Oxlajuj B’atz)
Posted by Laura on March 9, 2010
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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 [...]
Profile: Thirteen Threads (Oxlajuj B'atz)
Posted by Laura on March 9, 2010
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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 [...]
Project Updates: Water Charity
Posted by Laura on March 4, 2010
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Last September, we published a profile of a great organization called Water Charity. Now, we would like to update you with Water Charity’s most current projects in Guatemala: Coxjac School Latrine Project: This is a project to construct three latrines for a school system in rural Guatemala. The process will also incorporate lessons involving the [...]
Profile: Seeds of Help
Posted by Laura on March 1, 2010
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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 [...]
Profile: Faith In Action Ministries
Posted by Laura on February 26, 2010
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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 [...]