Health

LACA has already funded 11 Water Projects in rural communities in Honduras and with future donations, will continue to fund more. The building of wells, latrines and water runoff/storage tanks is very necessary for these communities and will help reduce disease and many other common health problems at the community level. LACA provides the funds for the water project materials and the people of the community contribute the labor.

In the isolated village of Corralitos the whole community, all the men, women, and children, hand carried the construction materials over five kilometers of rugged terrain in order to reach their community before they could begin the labor of constructing their water project and 26 latrines.

The people of Pimentilla, Carboneras, Patastillas, Pasquare, Las Machacas, Mata de Platano, and Buenos Aires de San Ignacio are, for the first time, enjoying clean, pure water at their homes. The women are so happy not to have to walk long distances with large buckets on their heads to fetch water!

Las Machacas, an isolated village of 63 people, was a challenge for LACA’s representatives to reach. The first trip to visit the village took an hour and a half by car and 4 hours hiking on a narrow mountain path in temperatures that reached 100 degrees.

Other Health Projects in which LACA is involved consist of medical and dental clinics, and health education.

Four LACA board members and two nurses have gone to Honduras many times in the past, to assist the International Health Service (IHS) a group of volunteer doctors, nurses, dentists, pharmacists, and helpers, in staffing medical clinics. In February 1999, two board members, and a former board member joined the IHS again, as volunteers, each paying their own way, costs and expenses.

LACA volunteers have also provided health education in the schools, peoples’ homes, and to community groups. With LACA’s assistance they have conducted sessions in dental education, prenatal education, child care and development, women’s health issues, and communicable diseases, including AIDS.

Recent LACA Health Projects

A Man With A Dream: JOSE LUIS MEDINA

Jose Luis Medina is a member of a small community in rural El Salvador. He is a father of seven children, three of whom he adopted. As a Promoter of Health, he treats the basic health needs of his community. His life’s dream, however, was to pursue studies at the university. Following his life’s ambition […]

LACA Returns to the Tarahumara Indians

For the past five years, LACA Board member, Martha Duarte has championed the cause of the Tarahumara Indians–the native people of the Copper Canyon region in the State of Chihuahua, Mexico. The Tarahumara, who number about 60,000, are the most primitive of all Indian tribes in North America, and are the least touched by modern […]

Our Poorest Neighbor Seeks Help

To improve the welfare of the rural poor in Latin America is a brief statement of LACA’s mission. This goal became the driving force behind LACA’s response this year to appeals from Haiti.
A hospital located in Pilate asked for resources to purchase piping to direct water from a mountainous area to villages below, an […]

Medical Team Visits Latin America for the 6th Time

In October 2004, a 10-member LACA team made its sixth medical trip to Tacachico, El Salvador. Tacachico (translated “little Indian”) is a small town in the center of El Salvador. The terrain is mountainous, but the town is situated in the middle of a bowl-like valley. There are some 25,000 residents who live in the […]