Maternal Child Health and Education Program

Santiago Atitlán suffers some of the highest infant and child death rates in Latin America.

Women in the Santiago region have limited access to family planning resources and education. Even when these resources are available, the women tend to not use them because the existing health care infrastructure does not respond to the special cultural needs of families in the Santiago area. Most health providers lack the communications skills needed to provide quality, culturally appropriate reproductive health and family planning services to rural indigenous women or couples.

Pueblo a Pueblo’s innovative Maternal Child Sponsorship program is reversing that trend by providing new mothers with the support they need to give their babies the best possible start in life.

Sponsored mothers not only receive prenatal and postnatal care, but also medical care for their infant through age five, seeing them through the period of highest vulnerability. Mothers participate in monthly education programs focused on prenatal care, family planning, child nutrition, sexually transmitted infections and HIV/AIDS, hygiene, and preventive care.

Our program partner is Rxiin Tnamet, a Santiago Atitlan community health center using a network of medical professionals, peer educators, and midwives to deliver modern medical care that respects the T’zutujil culture. Together, we provide culturally appropriate, accessible, and sustainable reproductive health and family planning services for our sponsored mothers and comprehensive health care services for their young children.

For less than a dollar a day, you can help give a new mother the most precious gift of all: a strong, healthy baby. You can choose to receive updates and baby pictures, and are encouraged to visit your sponsored mother and baby if you travel to Guatemala.

Healthy babies start with healthy mothers.
Please sponsor a mother and her infant today!