Support Kaqchikel midwives in Guatemala

Dear Friends,

As you have been hearing about in our recent program updates for this project, a major focus of our efforts this year in our midwifery and women's health programs as been improvement of the quality of our educational offerings for women.

To this end, we have been running general educational classes for women of all ages and professions, where small groups of women get together to discuss important topics, like sexual health and contraception. These classes are facilitated by female Wuqu' Kawoq staff members, which creates an intimate and confidential space to discuss these important topics.

We are now happy to say that we are in our 6th round of these classes, and enrollment continues to grow! We are now offering simultaneous class sessions both in our central Santiago clinic location as well as in several rural communities where we have a clinical presence due to other activities (like child malnutrition programs).

In addition to being a great educational opportunity for the women in our communities, these classes also serve as a great way to introduce women to the concept of their basic health care needs. Each participant is offered full access to our clinical services, which means that these classes are providing a way for women to get pap smears, screening for sexually transmitted infections, treatment for menstrual problems, and the like.

All of these services are provided by skilled female nursing staff, with back up from our doctors as needed, and we have been very excited by how enthusiastic women are to participate!

In the coming year we plan to keep growing this program, and our target for these classes, and the associated health care package, will be to reach at least 250 new women in 12 months.

Thanks as always for your support, and feel free to email us with questions or comments at any time (contact@wuqukawoq.org).

Links:

• Our website
• Our Facebook page