Fight Rising Malnutrition in Rural Guatemala

Dear Friends,

I am writing this brief update to you from the field here in Guatemala, where we have just spent a couple of days in Paquip, the first community project funded by this initiative. We have been meeting with municipal leadership and ironing out the last details of the project. Last week, baseline data collection on all malnourished children were completed by our team (both new local volunteers and our regional Wuqu' Kawoq staff), and the Plumpydoz product will arrive on site in a couple of weeks, so we are just about ready to begin!

Thanks to your generosity, of course, we are not just going to be working with this project in Paquip. We have designated several other communities where we will be starting similar programs using the extra money raised. This is tremendously exciting, because it gives us the opportunity to collaborate with other organizations and communities that have asked for our help, but that we have not yet had the capacity to deal with.

We have hired a few new local staff to manage the growth in programs spurred on by this fundraising campaign, and we are also investing small amounts in infrastructure to support the programs. For example, we are constructing a small building in the Bocacosta region to help with the efficiency of our project expansions there (see the link below for information on this project).

As always, thanks for your support and interest in our work!

Links:

• Building a nutrition clinic in the Bocacosta!
• WK Facebook Page

Dear Friends,

The last few months have been very exciting for us here at Wuqu’ Kawoq! Thanks to your generosity, we have raised many more funds for our child malnutrition work than we thought possible.

Consequently, our board and staff have been planning carefully how best to make use of these funds. In addition to the project in Paquip, we plan to use the money over the year to expand into similar rural communities in a staged fashion.

We have already taken the first steps forward in this direction. This week, members of the Paquip health committee made site visits to our other malnutrition programs to see how they work and to learn from the community members who run them. At the same time, we had meetings with the leadership of the community, who have approved the project and are excited to begin.

We have already placed our order for the Plumpy’Doz product that will be used to provide nutritional supplementation for these children, and we anticipate that it will arrive in Guatemala in the next month or two!

In addition to this program in Paquip, your generosity will allow us to provide the same services in at least 4 additional communities. We are working with local community leaders to identify these communities, hire the necessary additional staff, and begin scaling up these programs.

Stay tuned for more updates in the coming months!

Links:

• Our Facebook Page
• Our Website