Guatemalan Project Receives Global Grant
Squamish Rotary has been involved in Nueva Eden, Guatemala for more than 10 years. The initial project involved constructing a road into a remote village after the Guatemalan government failed to do the promised work. Several Squamish Rotarian worked on the road building project, and while there realized that the local people had no access to health care. Over the past 10 years, a clinic has been built, several medical training teams have visited, and literacy and water/sanitation projects have been completed. This grant will expand the project through several interrelated components:
1) Equip the clinic. 2) Provide
professional training for a full-time staff person. 3) Train and equip village health
promoters and traditional midwives. 4) Develop a telemedicine connection. 5) Expand
Village Textbook and Library Program. 6) Expand Reach Out and Read, a pre-primary
literacy program. 7) Expand clean water program. 8) Sponsor a Vocational Training
Team to visit the United States to learn how to address pressing health issues in their
community.
The Project will address The Rotary Foundation's Areas of Focus in the following way:
Disease Prevention and Treatment: Equipping and improving the clinic will increase
the scope of what the clinic can offer to the community. Health-care training for a full-time
primary care provider will prepare him to diagnose and treat minor illnesses and recognize
serious illnesses. The provider can also teach preventative health care to the villagers.
The addition of telemedicine will expand diagnostic capabilities and give backup for the
primary care provider. Training health promoters will allow them to be better primary care
providers in their villages in the absence of professional medical personnel.
Vocational Training Team members desire to learn about traditional therapeutic
interventions supplemented with commonly accepted modalities known to be effective in
developing countries. Severe problems with multiple areas of psychiatric disorders that
fall within acceptable ICD9 codes are found in at least 30% of the population in the
community served. These typically manifest in the form of depression, anxiety and posttraumatic
stress disorder (PTSD). Long-term stress and failure to treat psychiatric
problems ultimately leads to concurring disorders that include but are not limited to alcohol
dependence, domestic violence, assaults on women and children, and a pervasive sense
of helplessness, as there are no available treatment options.
Water and Sanitation: The extension of the availability of Ecofiltros to 20 additional
villages beyond the pilot village will improve the health of the villagers in a wider region.
Maternal and Child Health: At present, a 50% infant mortality and a 25% maternal
mortality rate are reported. Training programs for traditional midwives will address
common causes of death.
Basic Education and Literacy: Ten more village schools surrounding the central "hub" of
Nuevo Edén would receive textbooks, school supplies, and library collections. Reach Out
and Read is a pre-primary literacy program.