Squamish Rotary has partnered with Rotary clubs across North American on this $175,000 project in a remote area of Northwest Guatemala.

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.