Pascualita with AMEDICAusa V.P. Silvana Ayuso and Hogar Feliz staff
Life is hard for every poor and indigenous Maya child in Guatemala.
San Andres Semetabaj, Sololá, Guatemala-
Sometimes though, one child’s struggle grabs your heart and you know you just have to do something.
We first met Pascualita during a medical mission at the National Hospital in Retalhuleu. She was being treated for a very serious, rare and incurable genetic skin disorder, Ichthyosis. The disease is often fatal to infants in Central America, who suffer dehydration, infections, chronic blistering, overheating, and rapid-calorie loss due to the condition. Rescued from a a mother that was unable to care for her, often abusive, and was using her for bait while begging in the streets, at four years old, she has already beaten the odds by simply surviving.
On her best days, smiling is physically difficult and painful. On her worst, she bleeds through cracked skin, suffers innumerable infections, and has near constant pain. Hot weather (plentiful in Retalhuleu) is physically dangerous to her as she dehydrates rapidly and sunshine makes her skin dry and crack even more.
Medical treatment of her condition is mostly supportive. There is no cure, and few medications exist to help treat the disease. Those drugs that do exist in the United States are experimental, ruinously expensive – even by our standards – and are unavailable in Guatemala.
. The “Happy Home” Dr. Gilberto Rolando Morales, an old friend of AMEDICAusa and the director of the Hospital Nacional de Retalhuleu, worked with the the local social services to find a suitable home for Pascuala. They finally found her a spot in a Hogar ( home in Spanish, but in this context a combination of a foster care, orphanage and day care center) in the cooler highlands of Guatemala. Casa Hogar Feliz, (the House of the Happy Home) a Norwegian run orphanage in Sololá had the room and staff that could care for her, but lacked the special skin creams and nutritional support needed for her continued care. When AMEDICAusa was asked for assistance, we simply couldn’t refuse. Acquiring the necessary salves, vitamins and other supplies in the U.S., we brought them down to Guatemala and a new mission was born. Our Vice President, Silvana Ayuso, put together a team of volunteers and armed with toys, clothing, personal toiletries and even piñatas, brought not only six months of medical supplies to Pascualita, but a little bit of Christmas to all the children of the hogar. It might not be an ground breaking effort – it won’t fix hunger, alleviate Guatemala’s poverty or even provide a cure for her underlying disease – but if it helps make Pascualita’s life just a little bit better, a little bit easier, we consider it a great success. If you would like to help AMEDICAusa aid the poor, indigenous and forgotten children of Guatemala please donate here.
AMEDICAusa volunteers bring a little Christmas to Pascualita and Hogar Feliz in Sololá, Guatemala
AMEDICAusa, inc. is an I.R.S. 501(C)(3) registered charity, headquartered in Frederick, Maryland.
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