Socorro

For a number of years, we have had a clinical presence in the Piedmont region of Guatemala, centered on the towns of San Antonio Suchitepéquez, San Pablo Jocopilas, and Chocolá. This is a fascinating region of the country, rich in both sugar cane and coffe, but with a marginalized indigenous population who suffers from the lack of basic infrastructure and outside development assistance. Members of the communities where we work speak both Kaqchikel and K'ichee'.

Our initial experiences in the region involved the provision of walk-in clinical services in rural villages surround the major town centers. Two years ago, we expanded our delivery model in response to feedback from community members and our own desire to provide a more intensive, longitudinal primary care experience.

Currently, most of our efforts are concentrated on the village of Socorro. Here we have instituted a comprehensive child malnutrition program, which provides village-wide growth surveillance. Additionally, we treat medical comorbidities, including anemia and parasite infections, and we provide food supplementation to the most at-risk children. As an effort to further protect the health of the village's small children, we have recently expanded into prenatal care services as well.

Simultaneous to our health projects in the region, we are actively seeking ways to improve infrastructure. Currently we are involved in the installation of a potable water system in Socorro.

We are currently seeking funding and partnerships to expand our child and prenatal health programs into the other 5 villages in the region where we maintain a clinical presence.

See photos from this project here