COMMUNITY HEALTH CLASSES ARE BACK, NEW & IMPROVED!

Featured above are members of the team at Mil Milagros, an organization dedicated to leadership development and early childhood education, after completing our new Human Development class.

The class in the Santa Lucía Utatlán area was the first we’ve been able to offer since the onset of Covid! We are thrilled to be able to resume the class and pilot our new curriculum, which we developed during the pandemic.

We've expanded the former Women’s Health course to focus more broadly on human development to help mothers raise their daughters and sons as well as care for themselves. The revised course covers everything from anatomy and the menstrual cycle to fostering loving relationships. We offer the six-session course free of charge. Participants also can elect to receive cancer screenings and their choice of family planning method.

On a related note, we are very pleased to announce two exciting additions to our family planning program - a women’s health nurse and a male peer counselor, who will focus on engaging male partners through classes, education, and counseling. Research shows that one of the primary barriers that women in rural Guatemala face in using long-acting contraception methods is resistance from their partners; the aim is to help open the conversation.

It is wonderful to be back out in the field offering classes and meeting with more community members!

USING SOCIAL MEDIA TO DEMYSTIFY COVID VACCINES

Our Covid Vaccine Confidence study with researchers from University of California San Francisco and Stanford University’s Digital Medic is complete, and we came away with great appreciation for our partners and a better understanding of how to effectively communicate vaccine information to our patients. 

The goal of the project was to identify and address the main myths and misinformation that create doubts about vaccines in rural Guatemala and find ways to offer more accurate information.

In a series of interviews in the towns of Patzún, San Andrés Semetabaj, Tecpán, and Sololá, researchers found the central concerns included mistaken beliefs that vaccines caused death and infertility, involved insertion of a microchip, and were against God’s will. In these conversations, researchers also explored barriers to receiving vaccines, such as a lack of basic information in Mayan languages. 

We then developed a series of social media videos in Spanish, K´iche’, and Kaqchikel that dispelled these myths and provided information about how to get vaccinated. After a social media campaign that targeted videos to select community members, the team reassessed beliefs and actions related to vaccines. 

The study showed that videos in Mayan languages seem to improve the perception of the safety of Covid vaccines and that those who had seen the videos were more likely to have been vaccinated.

BUILDING STRONGER FOUNDATIONS

Our team is training non-profit colleagues to use the International Guide for Monitoring Child Development to better identify, prevent, and address problems with nutrition and help parents provide responsive, stimulating care to support their children's development. This is part of a NIH-supported research grant to understand the adaptation and implementation of this important guide in the Global South. Pictured here are the graduates of the pilot training - health promoters from San Lucas Tolimán who are among our long-time collaborators.

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