**EMERGENCY SPONSORSHIP**GUATEMALA**

***UPDATE*** Karla has been sponsored!! Thank you Ben and Jodi, and Jon and Jenna for your gracious donation to help little Karla have a better life. 

Karla Yaneth Cochoy Perez

Born August 21, 2013

#385

Yesterday Karla came into the clinic with her mom and aunt. She is is one month old and is very malnourished. She weighs only 5.5 pounds with clothes on! She was born with a cleft palate and some unknown congenital problems. An ultrasound showed that she is possibly missing her left kidney and she has rotoscoliosis of the spine. She has five older brothers and the oldest is 12 years old. Karla’s father works as a day laborer and her mother stays at home with the children. The family lives with the mother’s sister and there are a total of 12 people living in a one room concrete house with a tin roof and cement floor. The house has electricity and a bathroom but no running water. Because of her cleft palate Karla is not able to nurse properly and must drink formula from a bottle. She needs two sponsors to cover the cost of milk and the medical exams and therapies that she will need as she grows.

4 days at location 3 and now Haiti

I spent the last four days at the new location. I am so excited to

Be working here. The area is serene and the people so friendly. They have office space and housing available for PID. I can't wait for Nov 9th to announce where we will be working next. I wish we could start tomorrow. 

I am ready and so are they !

Now it is off to Haiti. 

New Interns in Guatemala

On Wednesday two new interns arrived. Clara will be here until December helping kids in our sponsorship program with their school work, interviewing families involved in PID programs and helping to teach the English classes. Ankita is a medical intern that will be here for three weeks and will see patients in the clinic.

Little girls playing with puzzles while their aunt was in with the doctor

In the US

We are starting to prepare for our annual benefit an important part of our yearly funding. We are happy to have Julie join us, as our coordinator for the event. Watch for your invitation. 

Our research and development committee met to continue planning our programs for the next country we will work in. It is an exciting time for PID. We will announce the next country at the 

Annual benefit . 

I am preparing to leave for a week to the new location for a few days and then to Haiti. I am looking forward to gathering more new information and to

Continue working on housing in Haiti. 

**Urgent Sponsorship Needed in Guatemala**

Julio Antonio Garcia Gonzalez
#254B
DOB May 15, 2012

Julio Antonio is one year and four months old. He is the youngest of nine children – five girls and four boys. Julio and his siblings live with their parents in a small one room house made out of plastic tarps and scraps of tin. They don’t have electricity or running water. They use the nearby river to go to the bathroom and to take a bath. When Julio was 8 months old he started to suffer from convulsions and he continues to have at least one or two each day. His mother is very worried because she doesn’t have any money to help him with the expensive exams that he needs and with the medicine that he will have to take for the rest of his life. The family needs the help of two sponsors to help provide Julio with the medical care that he needs and help the family out with extra food which they desperately need.

What's going on in Guatemala?

Things have been pretty quiet here in the clinic recently since it has been over a month since our last team. But even amidst the quiet we have been quite busy! The children in our sponsorship program went home very happy this month because I bought them each a box of cornflakes to go along with their monthly food distribution. I love seeing their smiling faces as they leave hugging their box of cereal.

This Thursday some of the sponsored kids will come to the clinic and get tested for learning disabilities. We are trying to find ways to help the kids in our program that are struggling in school. Hopefully once we identify the ones with learning disabilities we will be able to find them special help with their homework.

Our dental student is working one day a week at the clinic and lots of the sponsored kids are getting their teeth worked on. We even let in some adults who are really suffering from an infected tooth.

Our newest project is developing a new program for the children born with cleft lip and palate. Our five kids are doing well and staying healthy and happy. Within the next month or so we will be bringing two of them to Antigua for operations.

Wilfredo Emanuel - 3 months old

Paulita - one year old

Carlitos - one year four months old

Haiti Update

Dionne and Sophia stayed until Wednesday, leaving Wednesday afternoon. Dionne worked hard with Joot on the new live clinic database. She had a lot of great ideas and the system is off to a great start. Sophia had a great time, learning about her country and making great friends. We said good-bye to them, but Sarah will be staying with us for a little while longer. She continues to work hard in the clinic seeing lots of patients. Patrick finished the second of two temporary tarp houses for two families in our program in desperate need of shelter.

Team's first day of work

Today Sarah, Dionne, and Sophia had their first day of work. First, they had a tour of the clinic, where all our staff introduced themselves and their work. After, Sarah, a PA, started seeing patients, and Dionne, a medical records specialist began working with Joot on the next step in our clinic database: going live. Sophia spent most of the day playing with her new friend Alexandra.

Update from Haiti

Yesterday Sarah, Dionne, and Sarah's daugher Sophia arrived safely in Haiti. They went on a tour of downtown Port-au-Prince and out to eat at Epidor. Today they enjoyed a church service in the morning and a day at the beach. They are looking forward to their first day of work tomorrow.

Patrick continues working hard doing various projects around the PID compound in addition to working with the construction guys on the admin building and the new cement benches we are building for the patients to sit under the mango tree.

I have been working with Jimmy trying to make connections with other organizations in P-au-P who might be able to help us get free or discounted meds for our pharmacy.