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Why Latin America?
As we work with communities to help improve health conditions, we want to preserve and embrace the beauty of their cultures.
The first chocolate bar was invented by the Mayans in Guatemala.
To Guatemalans, textiles are more than clothes. Marital status and home community can be identified through patterns and colors. Girls are taught to weave starting at the age of eight.
Women work from home weaving and maintaining the household. Their home office exposes them to higher rates of indoor air pollution.
Mountainous regions in Peru & Guatemala restrict rural travelers from seeing a doctor regularly. A trip to the nearest clinic is often a day’s walk away.
From 1960 to 1996 civil war raged in Guatemala; the longest in Latin American history. Its effects are still felt throughout the country today.
Traditionally in Latin America, an open fire fueled by coal, biomass, or animal dung is used for cooking, heating and lighting causing the home to be filled with smoke.
70% of diseases in Latin America are directly related to inhaling indoor air pollution.
Almost half the children under 5 years in Guatemala are short for their age; caused by malnutrition stunting.
Guatemala has the sixth highest level of chronic malnutrition in the world, and the highest in Latin America and the Caribbean.
While Spanish is the official language, in addition, Guatemala’s twenty-one indigenous Mayan communities each speak their own language.
Known as ‘the land of eternal spring,’ Guatemala’s temperature is blissfully mild most of the year.
Consecutive years of irregular rainfall in Central America’s Dry Corridor have exacerbated acute food insecurity among poor households.
Period poverty in Guatemala weighs heavily on the country. The lack of access to hygiene management education and proper sanitation tools forces young girls out of school for days at a time.
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