A community in Guatemala comes together
to bring clean water to hundreds of families
Seed Grant Funding for Community-Designed Health Projects
In Latin America, where maternal mortality is 17 times higher than in the U.S. and approximately 370,000 children die each year from preventable conditions such as diarrhea and respiratory infections, impoverished and Indigenous people face severe health issues every day.
Many communities understand that poor health is often caused or exacerbated by poverty, racism, environmental degradation, and other factors, and they have both the motivation and knowledge to devise their own integrated solutions to child and maternal health problems. What they lack is financial support or technical expertise. Our Community-Designed Health Projects Fund meets this need by providing funding for well-conceived, sustainable, grassroots health projects.
Our program goes beyond grantmaking. We are committed to building long-term partnerships with communities committed to quality child and maternal health, who recognize the essential link between individual health and community well-being and prosperity, and have the capacity to be agents of change. Through regular communication and site visits, we deepen our knowledge of the history, challenges, and successes of each community. Our goal is to help grassroots leaders expand their skills, generate new ideas, and turn the best ideas into future projects.
Projects Helping Communities Help Themselves
ADEMI (Ixpiyakok Asociación de Mujeres), a woman-led organization in Tecpan, Guatemala started by widows of the country's civil war, promotes food security and reduces severe malnutrition in children and pregnant women. ADEMI is providing health checkups for 65 women and 55 children in the Kaqchikel Mayan village of Hacienda María, and equipping 25 women participants in the Municipal Commission for Nutrition and Food Security with leadership skills.
Quechi Partners, an organization in Izabal, Guatemala, is training 70 female community health promoters in 50 Mayan communities to address the shortage of health practitioners. The health promoters are trained in family hygiene, first aid, traditional and modern medical practices, health prevention principles and healthy childcare. The project will benefit 3,000 community members.
Local community members, the Municipality of San Martín Jilotepeque, and the Guatemalan MInistry of Health collaborated to provide access to clean drinking water and basic sanitation. 30% of the population must obtain water from handmade wells, most of which have contaminated water. In response, 175 water chlorinators were installed at the water source in all of the municipality's communities. Plumbers and newly formed water committees were trained on operating and maintaining the chlorinators, and building awareness among the communities on safe water usage.
Aguacero, Tecnología y Salud Comunitaria a community group in Chiapas, Mexico, provides pediatric first-aid training to health promoters and residents in the communities of Bethel, Madronal, Comunidad de Tepeyac and Colonia La Maya in Chiapas, Mexico, benefitting nearly 2,000. For villages hours away from a hospital, this type of training can be the difference between life and death.
Bioconstruye México, a woman-led organization, teaches women in rural areas of Mexico to build ecological stoves that protect them and their children from excessive smoke inhalation and severe burns, while also providing leadership skills. Forty-six people from Tehuantepec, Oaxaca benefitted from this work.
Sbelal Kuxlejal, based in Guaquitepec, Chiapas, a collective of local women promoting the social well-being of Indigenous families in their communities, got their inspiration from Bioconstruye México. The women are learning to build eco-stoves to improve the health of children and women, many of whom suffer from smoke inhalation and burns, from the use of open flame stoves in non-ventilated areas.