Family Planning for Guatemalans Living in Poverty

One of WINGS’ longest-standing programs is our network of more than 30 Volunteer Health Promoters: community leaders identified within underserved rural areas to be a local point of service. Through their intimate linguistic and cultural knowledge of the communities they serve, they are able to provide quality contraceptive counseling, low-cost short-acting methods, and referrals to WINGS medical clinics for additional services.

Hilda Siquic is one of our star volunteer health promoters from the northern department of Alta Verapaz. We interviewed her recently about her perspectives on her work with WINGS. Here’s what she told us.

“I am 25 years old and I have no children. It is not something common in my environment. 

I wanted to be part of WINGS to be able to inform my community. In Alta Verapaz, women have many children, and most of them are because they do not know about the existence of effective methods to control their pregnancies. In my community, Yapelmech (Raxruhá), many women have 7 to 10 children. As a Volunteer Promoter with WINGS, I provide women with short-acting reversible contraception. Now we have to educate men, because they don’t want women to plan with long-acting reversible contraceptives since they believe that incites them to infidelity. 

When I started with WINGS I thought that family planning talks would not be welcomed since my community is very religious and church priests are against contraception, but it was the opposite. The women are really relieved to know that they can have the children they want at such an affordable cost.” 

Women like Hilda are helping to change the daily realities of so many communities in Guatemala by bravely talking about the subject of reproductive health with their families, friends, and neighbors. Your continued support of WINGS and Hilda means so much to us as we provide reproductive health education and services in Guatemala. ¡Gracias!

2019 marks WINGS’ 18^th year. We are growing in important and strategic ways, always aiming to reach the unreachable with reproductive health education and services.

The most significant growth is a geographic expansion via a new third mobile unit to the Western Highlands including Huehuetenango, Quetzaltenango, and San Marcos. We have secured funding, hired local staff, and trained this new team to begin providing WINGS’ services in three new departments beginning July 1. We are leveraging a recently signed MOU with the Guatemalan Ministry of Health that will allow us easier access to national hospitals with whom we partner to perform tubal ligations and vasectomies. 

Another meaningful partnership that we continue to grow is with APEVIHS (Asociación para la Prevención y Estudio del VIH/Sida), an organization working in the southwest region of Guatemala, focused on malnutrition, prevention, and screening of HIV, along with wrap-around community services. WINGS’ agreement with APEVIHS allows WINGS to have a clinic space within their offices and to accompany their community health workers when they go into the field to offer community-based services. We are excited to learn from APEVIHS staff and explore how to best integrate HIV-related services into our work.

In June, our Executive Director Rodrigo Barillas along with the President of our Board of Directors, Holly Myers, attended the Women Deliver conference in Vancouver. In addition to being inspired by the workshops and networking, they were able to share WINGS’ work on an international stage, continuing to build our reputation as a leader in the provision of rights-based, patient-centered care.

Finally, our Medical Director, Dr. Michelle Dubón, was chosen to be a part of the 2019 class of Aspen New Voices Fellows. These 25 leaders from the Global South work on the frontlines of global development and health. For more info, check out their website. Last week, Michelle participated in the “Aspen Global Innovators Group at Aspen Ideas: Health” gathering in Aspen, Colorado where she learned new tools and gained even more expertise to help us improve how we communicate about our work in rural Guatemala. (She also got to meet Dr. Ruth Westheimer!)

We are so proud of all the new opportunities we are experiencing right now and cannot wait to see what the rest of 2019 brings! Your continued support and trust mean so much to us as we provide reproductive health education and services in Guatemala. ¡Gracias!