Guatemala Update 2013

In July 2013, we made our fifth trip to Guatemala. We held medical clinics in four different locations in the Lake Atitlan area in Guatemala, seeing around 400 patients. The clinics took place in San Lucas Toliman, San Andres, Los Robles and Tocache. In addition to these clinics we made some house calls and went to a preschool operated by Mayan Families in San Antonio Palopo to see any sick students and their family members. We saw many patients we have seen before. It was amazing to see some of these people again and see how their health is improving. We held a day of medical clinics in a community member’s home in a new location in Tocache, a remote rural village high up in the mountains. This was the first medical clinic ever conducted in this village. We look forward to continuing these medical clinics next year.

In addition, we distributed hundreds of hand-made baby and children’s hats and blankets. These items were greatly appreciated especially since it is the rainy season in Guatemala right now. During our clinic in San Lucas Toliman, one little girl received a hat and said it was magic because she felt better just putting it on. I know the love and work that went into these hats are what made this hat magic. Many of the hats we delivered in Guatemala were made by students at Greenleaf Elementary School in Oakland, California and Washington Elementary School in Salt Lake City, Utah. With some other donations we were able to distribute 200 bags of beans and 200 bags of oatmeal.

Another one of our major projects in Guatemala is our children’s and prenatal vitamin programs. According to the World Health Organization around 80% of Mayan Children in the highlands of Guatemala are malnourished. Multivitamins have been proven to improve health and lifestyle of many. The World Health Organizations states that 24% of deaths due to malnutrition can be prevented by a daily vitamin supplement. Vitamins do not only save lives but they improve people’s quality of life by making them feel more physi- cally healthy and have more energy. Through our observations and conversa- tions with local teachers, we learned that after the children received vitamins they were able to focus more and are doing better in school. Our vitamin programs have grown dramatically. In fact, the children’s vitamin program has more than tripled in the last two years. Our prenatal vitamin program currently serves around 150 women. Studies have shown that prenatal vitamins decrease birth defects. Furthermore, prenatal vitamins help with breast milk production and nutrition.

Because many women in Guatemala have children close together and families struggle to have enough food, a high number of women breast-feed multiple children at once. With prenatal vitamins women are able to provide better nutrition for their children and to feel better and to take better care of themselves, their families and community. One young mother who received prenatal vitamins from us during our last visit came back with her adorable baby, who she called her “vitamin baby.” The baby was bright-eyed, alert and obviously ahead developmentally. The mother said it was because she took our vitamins while she was pregnant. We look forward to continuing and expanding these programs with your support.

Education is another of our areas of focus. We delivered 200 preschool workbooks that Baragwanath Blessings Inc. created. There are 26 different Mayan dialects but school is taught in Spanish. We developed this workbook to teach children some basic Spanish and other educational building blocks so they will be able to understand the material in school. We distributed these workbooks to a tutoring program in Los Robles, preschools operated by the local nonprofit group Mayan Families, and other schools in the area. Also children in Guatemala must have a certain number of notebooks in order to be allowed to attend school. Many families cannot afford these notebooks so their children are not able to attend school. We distributed 400 notebooks in San Andres and Tocache.

A heartfelt thank you to everyone who supports our projects. Your love and support is what makes our projects possible and successful. Baragwanath Blessings Inc. needs your help to continue and expand our work. Every little bit helps. For ten dollars we are able to supply vitamins for a woman throughout her pregnancy or enough vitamins for a child for one year. We look forward to continuing to work with you in the future and to expand our work and to make it even more effective.