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On March 1st, 38 I Care volunteers, including 5 optometrists and 2 optometry students, will gather in San Lucas Toliman, Sololá, for our organization’s 2025 vision health clinic. During 2 two-day clinics, we expect to see as many as 1200 patients, and to dispense prescription glasses, along with readers, and sunglasses from the large inventory that we plan to bring. The inventory has been prepared by many I Care members and supporters in Illinois and California over the past 10 months. Our team will travel with at least 7,000 pairs of donated lenses!
In collaboration with our in-country co-leaders and hosts, and, more importantly, with the Mayan Ancestral Authority of the region, we have identified the underserved pueblo of Panimatzalam for the initial segment of the event. This authority is an important, highly respected community leader responsible for managing the various indigenous social and political issues, and for safeguarding and growing the rights and resources of these often marginalized groups. It will be a privilege to work alongside Señor Domingo Quino, and an honor to provide needed vision services. If you would like to learn more about the Ancestral Authority, there is a link provided below*.
Our second clinic will take us back to the Gregorio Schaffer Hospital in San Lucas Toliman. We are coordinating this part of the clinic with the Friends of San Lucas (FOSL), a large charitable NGO that offers numerous services and programs in the region around beautiful volcano-ringed Lake Atitlan. In addition to the hospital in San Lucas Toliman where we held a clinic in 2023, FOSL supports and maintains the Health Promoter program as described on their website:
The internationally recognized Health Promoter program was started in 2004 by Sue Hammerton, an American Nurse Practitioner. The program has grown through a collaboration with Stanford University under the leadership of Dr. Paul Wise. Health Promoters live in the communities they serve and receive training to identify the treatment and prevention of different illnesses. Promoters focus on malnutrition, respiratory illness, diarrhea, skin disease and chronic illnesses including diabetes, hypertension and asthma. The Mission currently has 41 health promoters serving 19 communities. Since the onset of the child nutrition program, childhood deaths due to malnutrition have been reduced by 80%.
This team of health promoters has advised us that there are still numerous people in the region that were not able to be seen during the recent vision clinic in San Lucas, and has invited us back to serve them at the hospital. The FOSL will handle appointments and help arrange transport for those that live in more remote areas.
We are very fortunate to have such great compadres and we have worked to develop mutual respect, and to have high confidence that all will be ready. And, of course, we all understand that nothing, or practically nothing, could possibly go awry. Es la verdad, no?
Salud!
*https://www.cmi.no/publications/4085-building-mayan-authority-and-autonomy
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