In May 2025 I will be heading to rural Guatemala for a second trip with Team Broken Earth.  Our team plans on refining and building on our work from 2024 and we have new challenges and goals.

We will see about four hundred potential surgical candidates over 4-5 days in rural clinics (many of which are run in convents, gymnasiums or outpatient departments of hospitals).  Many of these patients will be onboarded and scheduled for surgery in Antigua in the fall when one of our surgical teams visits.  Surgeries include hernias, prolapse, cleft palate, hysterectomy, and also surgery for chronic orthopedic issues.  Costs of surgery/transportation are covered by the organization and these patients have few other options given their remote location and minimal access to surgical care (they are a 15 hour drive from Guatemala city in remote villages without money to pay for surgery).  Medications and treatments to temporize until surgery will be paid for and brought down by our team.  This includes vitamins and iron, feeding support, hormone therapy and so on.

A second goal of our trip is to connect with Indigenous obstetrical providers and exchange knowledge.  We will offer to share our experiences with emergency Ob care and also bring some delivery kits and supplies to support their birthing centers.  The providers we met last spring were very eager for this new endeavor and so were we!  We also look forward to connecting with more local healthcare providers in this part of the country to explore how we might support community needs best when we visit.

Our experience in 2024 was incredible.  Despite the challenging conditions (45 degrees day and night with forest fires and power failures...) our team worked incredibly hard to offer whatever we could.  Our new objective is to offer more support for local care providers and to provide patients with better support until surgery.  We are up to the task!  We have doctors and nurses on our team, and also have several senior medical students from South American medical schools!

Thank you for considering donating to our team.  We appreciate it!  Money will be used for medications and supplies, Ob kits as well as to help pay for the travel for the students on the team who would otherwise be unable to join us!

Rebecca