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Mayan Health Initiative

In 2013 our uncle, Dr. William Ahrens, working with the Sweeney family in Chicago, founded the Mayan Health Initiative (MHI) as a registered 501(c)3 organization headquartered in Chicago, Illinois with local operations in the state of San Marcos in Guatemala. He launched MHI after volunteering for 20 years in Guatemala's Western Highlands and witnessing the region's dire medical needs, first hand. The organization supports a team of six physical and speech therapists as well as four nurses, all of whom live in the communities they serve.

During Isabella's sophomore year of college, she traveled to Guatemala, bringing medicine and medical supplies to MHI. While shadowing our uncle in the various clinics he runs in the Altiplano, Isabella met children in various circumstances suffering from medical conditions, but was struck, most of all, by the severe malnutrition that inflicted the population. Half of all children in Guatemala under the age of five are chronically malnourished, the highest rate in the Western Hemisphere. In the Altiplano where our uncle works this percentage rises to nearly 70 percent.

To combat the acute malnutrition that plagues these communities, our uncle and the Mayan Health Initiative have treated approximately 4018 children over the past three and a half years by distributing a nutritional supplement called Plumpy'Nut, which is a peanut-based paste, ready-to-use therapeutic food. Currently, MHI is treating 620 children with Plumpy'Nut; however, this supply is projected to run out this fall and we are reaching out for support to buy a new supply.

MHI urgently needs to buy cases of Plumpy'Nut, which will be instantly shipped to Guatemala. Please consider supporting their efforts and helping to feed a desperately malnourished population! One box of Plumpy'Nut costs $50 and will treat up to four children. All donations go to the purchase of Plumpy'Nut. MHI activities are coordinated on a volunteer basis. Administrative costs are minimal and covered from other sources of funding. Please give what you can and think of the lives you will change with your generosity.

Lindsay will be running the Royal Parks Half Marathon on October 8th in London, UK to raise money for MHI.

To learn more about the Mayan Health Initiative, please visit us on our webpage and on Instagram.

http://www.mayanhealthinitiative.org/
@themayanhealthinitiative

Thank you for the help,
Isabella & Lindsay
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Donations 

  • Anonymous
    • $10 
    • 3 yrs
  • Anonymous
    • $130 
    • 6 yrs
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Organizer

Isabella Blair
Organizer
Honolulu, HI
Mayan Health Initiative
 
Registered nonprofit
Donations are typically 100% tax deductible in the US.

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