C H I L A inc.

Progress

June 1, 2009 -- Departure for Guatemala

June 10, 2009 -- General Assembly and Planning meeting with Q'ana Tz'uul Taq'a (women's group in Chisec)

June 10 - 25, 2009 -- Business and Product Development with women (bank account, new products, field trips to possible sales sites, accounting classes, business plan)

June 25 - 30, 2009 -- Purchase of Construction materials, and generation of work schedule for women and families

July 1-21, 2009 -- Construction

July 21-August 1, 2009 -- Healthy Schools program trainings -- pilot presentations in schools

December 2009 -- Finish construction (floors, stairs, roof)

March 2010 -- We met with the womens group all week, visiting their projects in various villages, furthering our partnership with their impressive projects

October 2010 -- We installed more electrical equipment, painted all of the examination rooms and the storage room, stucco'd the walls to smooth them out, and teamed up with Guatemalan artist Rene Dionisio to paint a mural on the front of the clinic....Check it out!!

December, 2010

Ma sa la ch’ool!!! (what’s up??!?!). We just got back from our latest trip to Chisec, Guatemala, and thank goodness it was uneventful and we got a lot done.

After a week of working on smoothing out the walls with stucco, and painting the individual clinic rooms and storage room, we had a Guatemalan artist paint a mural on the front of the clinic. Rene Dionisio is his name, and he is an indigenous Tzutujiil (another Mayan language) from Lake Atitlan. He is a great, laid back, perfect-english speaking, Tzuutijiil-Hip-Hop singing guy. Check out his work!!

We’ve also now got a “CHILA” quilt, hand-made by a staff member at our Medical School and a student in our class. We’re currently looking for the best way to sell it/auction it/raffle it to make some money to keep this going.

April 2011

Although it was supposed to end Saturday, we had a great week!! I’m still stuck in Guatemala however…our plane tickets were generous donations from Delta Airlines and they are standby status…so I keep getting bumped!!! Oh well…fingers crossed again tomorrow…

We got sinks installed in all 4 clinic rooms, put in fluorescent lighting throughout the clinic, had a wooden carved display made for our CHILA quilt, and provided metal roofing for 18 families who contributed 20 dollars of their own money in order to participate…great week!

In 2009, we raised $9500 through fundraisers like our "men of medicine calendar" and donation campaigns.

The summer project, phase 1 was a success. We had over 20 volunteers come to Chisec to work for 1-2 weeks at a time. James and May Leinhart stayed the whole summer...our progress was documented in our blog which can be found at: http://chilainc.wordpress.com/

**** Volunteers from our medical school class and others who had heard about the project from the website and elsewhere traveled to Chisec, Alta Verapaz and constructed our clinic in collaboration with Q'ana Tz'uul Taq'a, a local indigenous womens group in Chisec, A.V. whose focus and mission is natural/herbal/mayan medicine, maintaining Maya Q'eqchi traditions, vaccinations of household animals....etc....

One day a week, Ricardo, the medicine man who has studied for 40 years about mayan medicine and plants, comes to give free consult to the people of Chisec...The women pay him the equivalent of 10 dollars for his work per day...

Our clinic will eventually house consultation rooms for us (western medicine) and Ricardo (mayan medicine)....

We also successfully started a business development project with the women, marketing "mayan baskets" to be sold sale in larger cities to tourists. The baskets include include herbal medicines/shampoos/creams produced by the womens group, chile powder from another womens group, and cacao/chocolate from yet another womens group...

We purchased glass display cases and put the products for sale...

Summer Update:
** we raised $9500.00 and constructed most of the basic structure during the summer of 2009....THANK YOU DONORS!!

**we still need to pour the floor, install water and electrical facilities, bathrooms, stairs up to the main entrance, and a childrens play area. we plan to travel in December, 2009, to finish construction and need to raise $5000.00 to do so...

*****THE CLINIC SHOULD BE OPEN FOR OUR FIRST MISSION IN SUMMER 2009!!!!!!!!

PHASE 2 (DECEMBER 2009)

We raised $3200.00 from a benefit concert, hooded sweatshirt sales, and private donations...

For our December/Christmas trip we finished the cement floor for the clinic, cement stairs, the roof, doors, and windows....we used money from our T-Shirt sales, benefit concert in Johsnon City, TN, and private donations...

We also met with the womens group, Asociacion Q'ana Tz'uul Taq'a and started to hammer out a contract regarding our future...the women expressed that they wanted future help with funding regarding the activities that their mission and vision
deem a priority: natural medicine consult with a local Mayan medicine man, production of herbal medicines, farming, family health, and further education in these areas...CHILA inc. signed the contract for 3 months, with a planned re-negotiation in March 2010...

We also participated in our annual Santa Claus project where Scott Rowland, a returned Peace Corps Volunteer dresses as Santa Claus with us as his elves...we distribute polaroid pictures of each chiild with Santa Claus in places like the Coban garbage dump village, and various villages surrounding Chisec...

In March, 2010, we met with the womens group and visited their projects in 3 villages...they were incredible! They had sustainable production of household gardens, chickens, and herbal medicines...They appreciated our visits and although this particular trip was not a construction venture, it was a success!

In October, 2010, we returned to the construction site with 4 volunteers to continue the project. We stucco'd the walls, painted the rooms, installed electrical equipment and painted a mural on the front of the clinic...