The Impact You Make Possible

Responding to the Needs of Today and Tomorrow

At Salud y Paz, we know that access to healthcare changes lives. That’s why our Camanchaj clinic is now open one Friday each month to provide additional appointment times for patients to follow up on lab results and to meet the ever increasing demand for dental services.

Beyond our regular work in Camanchaj, our medical team travels long distances to set up satellite clinics in communities with little or no access to healthcare.

• Urbina – A community two hours away, where we work with the Volunteers In Mission program and the local Methodist Church.

• Cunén – A rural town four hours from Camanchaj, where we collaborate with the community’s volunteer first responders.

Providing care for chronic conditions for communities that have been historically excluded from health, education and economic opportunities continues to be the prevailing need among the people we serve in our clinics. In a study we conducted last year of the patients who attend our satellite clinics:

• More than 88% reported having no formal education or no education beyond elementary school.
• Almost half reported living in poverty.
• 85% presented with a chronic illness.

While our Salud y Paz preschool is making higher educational attainment a reality for future generations, there are still generations and communities experiencing real inequities that Salud y Paz responds to on a daily basis. All of this work, on its many levels, is crucial.

Thank you to our staff, volunteers and supporters like you, for making this important work possible.

A Subscription For Good

We are living in a subscription economy. Streaming, news, software, books, coffee, car-wash, food delivery. The list goes on. The benefits for consumers are the convenience, the flexible access to services or products without making a large upfront purchase. But what about the benefits to the businesses? Recurring revenue that makes it easier to forecast growth and plan for future investments, the ability to focus on long-term relationships.

Now let’s look at this through the lens of social impact – an organization like Salud y Paz.

A monthly gift – a subscription for good – to Salud y Paz, provides recurring revenue that enables us to plan, strategize for the future, and most importantly, focus on our long-term relationships – our patients.

• We can count on a steady stream of income each month, allowing us to plan our operations accordingly.
• We can hire permanent staff to provide consistent, quality care.
• We can maintain a regular clinic schedule, ensuring care is always available.
• We can keep our pharmacy stocked with the same formulary month after month.
• Most importantly, it means we can be a reliable partner for our patients who count on us for their health and well-being.

Are you ready to invest in a subscription for good?

Starting from $10 a month, you can help provide essential medical and dental care to families in need in Guatemala. That’s less than what you’d pay for a monthly streaming subscription 😉

Imagine the difference we could make if we could match the 300 patients we see every month with just as many monthly supporters.

The Impact of Our Teams

The beginning of 2025 has been nothing short of remarkable! Over the past few months, we’ve had the joy of welcoming several teams to Guatemala, who have been serving in our partner communities with limited access to healthcare.

While it’s been a busy season, it has also been fulfilling. So far, we’ve welcomed 6 teams—5 of which have been back-to-back. Their hard work, compassion and dedication have been inspiring, and here are the numbers reflecting the impact achieved:

• 1,062 patients received medical care
• 364 patients received dental care
• 504 patients received vision care

In addition to teams providing medical and dental care, we’ve had teams working on construction and maintenance projects. Thanks to them, our school now has a fresh coat of paint, creating a brighter and more welcoming space for students. And in Xepocol, a small community about 40 minutes from Chichicastenango, an important school project that will benefit children for years to come was completed.

Getting to our partner communities is not easy; the roads are steep and in poor condition, and sometimes only certain vehicles can make the trip. These underserved areas are far from the nearest cities and travel times can take up to an hour or more to reach these rural communities. Despite the challenges, our staff and teams are fully committed to getting there, because every patient, every student, and every family is always worth the effort.

See it for yourself! Watch this video created by Joseph Udouj, a talented member of FSFUMC, where he shares our work and the group’s experience in Guatemala.

Thank you to all the teams that have traveled here to serve. We look forward to the upcoming teams scheduled for this year to continue building on the work already accomplished.

A Journey of Growth

Every year, volunteers join Salud y Paz on medical, dental or construction mission trips, bringing care, compassion, and a lasting impact to the communities we work with. Guatemala has a way of changing us. Many return home with a new perspective and inspired to continue their journey of service.

One of these volunteers is Marisa, whose first experience with Salud y Paz in 2024 left a lasting impression. Before returning in 2025, Marisa shared her story with us:

Hi! My name is Marisa Camuto. I am with the All In Guatemala medical mission team. I had the honor and the privilege to be a part of this group this past March 2024. My involvement began in December 2023 when the opportunity to participate with All In Guatemala was presented to me. To be completely honest I was very nervous. I was in my last year of nursing school and filled with an insane amount of stress. I knew I wanted to do a mission trip at some point in my life. However, I didn’t know when, where, or if I was ready.

I decided to take a leap of faith and I traveled with the All In Guatemala group during my spring break. Leading up to the trip, I asked our Medical Director every question I could think of. Was I going to be safe? What kind of things will we be doing there? What are the people like there? Do they trust and accept foreign help? Even after all my questions were answered in thorough detail, I was still nervous. I only knew one other person going on the trip and I was traveling by myself for the first time. Flash forward to the trip, I was feeling every emotion of which you could think. I was sad and angry to see people’s living conditions. I was humbled. I was excited to be able to help make a difference. I felt like a little kid when I would play with the children once the clinic time was done. I was confused to see how genuinely happy people were despite their living conditions, work conditions, health conditions, etc. It was overwhelming to feel all of these emotions at once.

I had to miss the first clinical day of our trip due to food poisoning. I was very sick the whole day and felt a sense of guilt for not being able to help like I had planned. The very next day was a complete turn around and I woke up ready to serve in any way I could. I remember us pulling up to the community center and seeing people already in line waiting for us. The clinic was assembled in less than an hour and everyone began their assignments. We saw patient after patient and, before I knew it, we were done. Just as fast as the clinic was assembled, the clinic was disassembled and packed on the bus. Helping those patients that day, whether it was something very minor or a bit more serious, brought me so much joy. Every patient I talked to was eager to learn and showed me an extraordinary amount of kindness. Heading back to the hotel, I was already ready for our next clinic. Every clinic I helped with was an opportunity for me to grow in many aspects and gave me an appreciation for groups and organizations that facilitate trips like this.

By our last day, I was shocked at how just one week of being there reconstructed certain parts of me. I learned how to do things in the nursing field with less resources. I was humbled by the whole experience. I grew relationships with some of the Salud y Paz staff and was eager to learn more about their communities. As much as I was ready to be home with my friends and family, I can confidently say I also did not want to leave. I wanted to know what was next. I became eager and inspired to assist anyone and everyone. I knew before I returned the United States that I was going to be back in Guatemala. Since returning, the trip has constantly been on my mind and I’ve been talking to many people about the opportunity. Even though I wasn’t able to recruit as many people as I would have liked, I was able to recruit three new people to join our 2025 trip. I intend on making even more of a difference than I did during my last trip and hope to inspire more people to join the group in the future to come. I am forever grateful for the experience I had and the ones I’m going to make because of the Salud y Paz organization.