Working Together

The International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples was celebrated on 9 August, and to mark it we have a guest blog from Thomas Hart, Country Director of Health Unlimited, an organisation that this Embassy is supporting with a project in Guatemala’s second city, Quetzaltenango.

Over to you Thomas…

I was recently asked in a radio interview why development projects “always go on about indigenous people”, when there are plenty of poor people in Guatemala who aren’t indigenous.

If the interviewer had worked in the communities where we do, he wouldn’t have needed to ask. One Health Service worker complained to me that his main problem was that “people here are so ignorant, they can’t even speak Spanish”.

Indigenous populations are among the most marginalized and vulnerable. Maternal mortality for indigenous women in Guatemala is three times higher than for non indigenous women; child mortality is 33% higher; child chronic malnutrition is 91% higher. The British Embassy is hosting an event to raise awareness about malnutrition on 24 August, learn more here.

Access to basic services such as health and education is hindered not only by the geographical isolation of many communities, but by the nature of services on offer. Imagine a Hospital in London where none of the staff spoke English. That’s the situation for tens of thousands of Guatemalans whose language is not Spanish. The National Languages Law has guaranteed basic services including health, education and justice in the majority language of each municipality since 2003, but has yet to be systematically implemented.

I accompanied a Maya K’iche’ women who’d been raped as she sought help; we went to the hospital, the police, the judge, none of whom had a K’iche’ speaker to attend to her; and K’iche’ is the first language of almost a million Guatemalans.

That’s why organizations such as Health Poverty Action are working to promote services which respond to the demands and the needs of indigenous communities.

With the support of the British Embassy in Guatemala, we’re helping train Maya Mam women as emergency counsellors for survivors of Violence against Women. We’re soon to begin a project funded by the UK’s Big Lottery Fund on making maternal and newborn health services culturally appropriate.

To learn more, go to www.healthpovertyaction.org.

Thanks Thomas. This Embassy is acutely aware of the high levels of child malnutrition in Guatemala, which is why we are using an event in Guatemala City on 24 August, to celebrate the birth of Their Royal Highnesses the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s baby boy, to raise funds for a SESAN project to help tackle it. Tickets are on sale now until 21 August from bcaofguatemala@gmail.com and Embassy@intelnett.com.