VIDA PARA TODOS GUATEMALA

Our stated outreach services are focussed on water filters, eco-stoves, simple medicines/nutrition and both Christian and secular Education. Water filters are critical to the impoverished and down-trodden of Guatemala. Three million people lack any public water service and only 15% of the piped water in the country is safe to drink. Proper water filtration easily prevents the spread of water-borne diseases such as cholera, dysentery, hepatitis, malaria, intestinal worms and typhoid. The problem with most simple filtration systems is the requirement to regularly replace the filters which can be expensive and are not available throughout the country. Our filters are good for 8 years with a minimal cost of $45 and are available throughout the country. That's 8 years of safe water at the cost of only $45.

The largest environmental threat to human health worldwide is smoke from cooking fires. Household pollution from soot and smoke causes or aggravates lung cancer, stroke, heart disease, COPD, tuberculosis, cataracts and other illnesses. For children under 5, contact with smoke significantly increases cases of pneumonia and lower respiratory infections that can lead to death.

One of our most popular and important projects is the provision of vented eco-stoves that remove these pollutants from the home while also reducing the amount of firewood needed to prepare a meal. Not only do these stoves improve health, they also improve the economic condition of the families using them. With average life spans of only 65 years, Guatemalans have the 4th lowest life expectancy in the Western hemisphere.

Simple medicines that cost $10 or less in the U.S. would save so many lives, but most Guatemalan families cannot afford them. Many children that die under the age of 5 could have been saved by basic antibiotics, anti-malarial drugs or dewormer. Vitamins and protein drinks also combat the effects of malnutrition which is major cause of death in children under 5 years of age. We aim to reduce these childhood and other disease by making simple medicines available to those families who cannot afford them.

As an organization that believes we are called to serve as Christ served us, we would be remiss if we were not involved in helping to share the Gospel. To this end a group of several teen-aged girls, at a Public School near a garbage dump where we were working, asked for some bibles. We were able to buy some good children's bibles from a book fair at one of the Catholic Cathedrals in Antigua, Guatemala where we were living. We delivered the bibles to the school on a day that we also delivered food bags for the extremely poor. We later learned that these girls were using their bibles to give bible classes to the adults in their village who were illiterate. We also make school supplies available to public schools that lack them. Teachers often lack manuals to teach with and they buy supplies for their students.

We are working very hard at raising awareness of Vida Para Todos Guatemala, both locally and nationally. We have even had some success in receiving international donations. We are in the process of updating our website and we also have a running campaigns on our website to provide water filters, eco-stoves, medicine and educational materials for both Christian and public schools.

We have engaged a professional marketing company to help us with our FaceBook advertising and posts. Currently we are focussed on Giving Tuesday and a campaign to replenish our account for medicines. We continue to receive requests for such help and need to be in a position to respond favorably. Additionally, we have recently had an accelerator project approved by Global Giving that is to be launched on December 3rd that will hopefully provide funding for an additional 150 water filters.

As a result of our first 5K walk/run two high profile individuals from San Antonio came forward to offer their help in generating support for Vida ParaTodos Guatemala. One was the recently crowned "Model of San Antonio" who is of Guatemalan descent and is very excited to do what she can to raise awareness of Vida Para Todos Guatemala. She has recently assumed the role as President of our Board of Directors. Her energy and dynamic personality is an asset to Vida Para Todos Guatemala. There are other local personalities in the public media who have lent their support to us and have been helpful in raising both funds and awareness.

This year (2019) we have added a resident and citizen of Guatemala to our Board of Directors. Having a permanent presence and representative in country will be an enormous advantage to furthering our mission. Other internal efforts are focussed on broader dissemination of our new website that has several fundraising tools built into it. We also are taking training on how to developed better and more effective advertising on Facebook. InstaGram has been added to our website and we are learning how to better take advantage of its ability to reach out to the public. We next want to add Twitter to our tool bag and begin using it for outreach to potential supporters. A local marketing executive has become involved with us and has been responsible for producing our videos (we hope to make use of U-Tube in the future). He will continue to make his services and expertise available to us as we continue to grow. Our data base of supporters and donors is growing and we continue to follow up with them and are sure to thank each one for their support keep them abreast of our progress. Hopefully we can begin a blog and make use of it as an outreach tool.

We are admittedly small and never will be another Good Will or Red Cross; but we are quite capable of fulfilling our stated mission, which is, "TO FACILITATE AND IMPLEMENT PROJECTS IN PARTNERSHIP WITH TRUSTED GUATEMALAN ORGANIZATIONS IN THE AREAS OF CHRISTIAN AND SECULAR EDUCATION, NUTRITION AND HEALTH TO IMPROVE LIVES IN GUATEMALA." Our president has many years of experience in working in the non-profit sector and has spent several years in service and networking in Guatemala. She has developed important connections both in the United States and in Guatemala that will be of benefit to Vida Para Todos Guatemala as we move forward.

At our last annual Board of Directors' Meeting all of the members renewed their commitment to the organization and to seeing it become a success. We have developed an effective division of responsibilities and duties so that each Board Member is aware of what is expected of her/him.

Our Vice President and Treasurer is taking on-line classes to increase his knowledge of and how to effectively use social media to the advancement of Vida Para Todos Guatemala. We will take full advantage of the marketing professionals we have engaged to help us reach new heights just as they have done for other non-profit organizations. We recognize that we need this type of expertise and would be terribly shortsighted to not take advantage of it.

The other board members will also cultivate new supporters and develop strategies that will serve us well for the future as we continue to seek more and better ways to make our core programs and projects a success to the benefit of the poor in Guatemala. Vida Para Todos Guatemala will strive to keep our administrative costs at a maximum of 10% thereby making more income available for program.

As mentioned before, we have a new and better website, a bigger and more effective Facebook presence, access to marketing expertise and local support from some of the big names in San Antonio. We are also engaging in training and education to make us better at we do.

To date we have delivered:

70 Bibles to the Lutheran Church in Gualan,
12 Bibles for teenage girls who taught bible classes to the illiterate adults,
25 Bibles to the Mayan Village of La Colina,
2 Trunks of school supplies for students of families living under destitute conditions at a garbage dump,
and Christian Education materials for children of a churches in Antigua and Christian Education materials for children of a churches in Gualan.
We have provided over $210 of Children's Bibles to the village of San Andres Itzapa and the Sunday School Program of Compartiendo Nuestro Bendiciones (Sharing Our Blessings).

To combat malnutrition we have provided:

410 Food Bags to the families at a municipal dump and made
3 deliveries of basic staples to the people of Los Limones.

Our efforts to provide potable water have resulted in:

20 Water Filters for projects of the Lutheran Hour
8 Water Filters for families receiving new village homes,
25 Water Filters to families in Chile near Gualan,
60 Water Filters to families of special needs children in San Miguel Duenas ,
195 Water Filters to the village of Chixollis and
75 Water Filters for the Aldea El Manzanillo

We have been able to provide 47 Eco-Stoves in total:

27 Eco-Stoves to families receiving new homes in San Lorenzo and Mano de Leon,
4 Eco-Stoves to families in Los Limones near Gualan and
16 Eco-Stoves to families in Santiago Zamora.

We responded to the call for emergency relief for families affected by the eruption of the Fuego Volcano and were able to provide:

3,000 Bottles of water,
105 Tubes of toothpaste, 100 deodorant sticks and 100 razors,
1,000 Trash bags with brooms to clean up the volcanic ash
50 Bags of food, 70 pounds of chicken and 20 pounds of ham.