Provide Maternal and Child Healthcare in Guatemala
Your support of Project Concern International's (PCI) Casa Materna (Mother's House) program, an integrated reproductive and maternal and child healthcare program will help address the challenges of access to quality healthcare services for Mayan women and their children in the impoverished Department of Huehuetenango, Guatemala. Your gift will help provide women with clinical attention, evaluation, medicine and other services to ensure healthy pregnancies and access to health services for their children. Additionally, both parents and family members are trained in "low-tech" methods of effective infant care such as "Kangaroo Mother Care" where an infant is warmed through skin-to-skin contact, to improve the health outcomes of infants and improve their chance of survival.
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The Need
The health and human development indicators in Guatemala are among the worst in the world. The Statistical Update 2008, Human Development Indices published by the United Nations Development Programme, ranked Guatemala 121 of 179 countries, the lowest in all of Latin America. The official national infant mortality rate is 33 per 1,000 live births; however, it is significantly higher in rural areas. Over half of the deaths, including 80% of deaths of children less than 5 years of age, are among the poorest 20% of the population, which live primarily in rural, indigenous communities. The actual number of deaths is much higher however, since in many isolated rural communities up to 85% of births still take place in the home and most families in these poor villages never report the death of a newborn or young child. In addition, maternal mortality continues to be a serious problem in rural Guatemala, especially among indigenous Mayan populations.
About Project Concern International
Partner since April, 2010
Motivated by our concern for the world’s most vulnerable children, families and communities, Project Concern International’s (PCI) mission is to prevent disease, improve community health and promote sustainable development. We envision a world where abundant resources are shared, communities are able to provide for the health and well being of their members, and children and families can achieve lives of hope, good health and self-sufficiency. PCI is a non-governmental, non-profit, international public health and humanitarian assistance organization that has promoted community health and development worldwide since 1961.
PCI’s approach is integrated, holistic and person centered. Rather than targeting activities to respond to one or two specific issues within a community, PCI's programs work to provide communities with sustained and integrated interventions, which deliver a comprehensive range of services and skills that help them to address their long term health and development needs in a way that empowers them as agents of their own advancement. Currently operating in 16 countries in Africa, Asia and the Americas, PCI reached over 5.5 million people in 2009 with lifesaving programs.
