Great News: Our District Has a Global Project Underway!

Rotary Foundation Approval was recently granted for the $140,000 Project!  It is focused on one of the Rotary Six Areas of Focus: Saving Mothers and Children

 

The Longview Rotary Club will spearhead all of the active work to get the project accomplished.  A special bank account is being set up to receive all of the funds for the project and carefully account for them.

 

Over $90,000 of medical equipment will be purchased over the next several months to support the birth of over 8000 babies each year at the Hospital in San Benito.  Funds for the instruments and equipment were supplied by:  The Longview Rotary Club, the Longview Greggton Rotary Club, The Marshall Rotary Club, The Carthage Rotary Club, the Tulsa Rotary Club, Rotary District 5830, and multiple districts in Zones 30 and 31 up through the Central part of the US.

Movement of over twenty hospital beds made available from the closing of a Hospital in Clarksville were coordinated by the Clarksville Rotary Club.  These will be transported to Guatemala in May.

 

Rotarian Deborah Bell, the 2007 Nurse Practitioner of the year in Texas, and a nationally recognized midwife trainer/counselor will be traveling to the Peten’ in the Summer to train approximately 350 midwives in the latest techniques.  Through Refuge International, they will be outfitted with medical instruments and tools they need to provide primary care in the delivery of thousands of infants each year, outside the Hospital, in the villages around San Benito.

 

In the Fall, when the medical equipment arrives, we’ll be sending Rotarians down to celebrate the completion of the project.

 

Work is planned to sustain the equipment over a 10 year project life cycle, maintaining the instruments, insuring that they continue to function, improving the medical prospects of good outcomes, reduced infant and maternal mortality.

 

Carroll Greenwaldt