Salvando Vidas (Saving Lives)

Centro Maya Project | Centro Maya Xe’Kiyaqasiiwaan | Saving Lives
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The Centro Maya Project began Salvando Vidas in 2004 when Centro Maya Xe’Kiyaqasiiwaan saw many of the children arrive malnourished. The program began with six families and has grown to include 16 families by 2009. At first the program supported families of disabled children who were clients at Centro Maya Xe’Kiyaqasiiwaan, but it expanded to the greater community because of the severe malnutrition young children and pregnant women were experiencing. These programs are operating in 2009:

• Family food assistance provides groceries (not cash) once a month
  These groceries are purchased locally, in bulk and at a discount, from the same grocery store that collaborates with the employment program. Once a month, the families line up at the distribution point to pick up their bags of corn, beans, rice, salt, soap, cooking oil, and toothpaste. The program costs $35 per month per family, and donors are encouraged to sign up for one year’s worth of groceries. There is no overhead with this program; 100% of funding purchases groceries. As of 2009, 16 families are in this program.

  Volunteers Benedicto Ixtamer Peréz  and Maria Concepcion Cholotio Hernandez, local residents, oversee food distribution. Many members of the congregation met Benedicto when he visited the Quad Cities. He painted a beautiful painting of a typical Guatemalan market that now hangs in the downstairs hall. The congregation purchased this painting as a gift to the congregation’s Religious Education teachers.

• Family vegetable garden plot (with water, start-up seeds, organic mulch, and vermiculture) at a community gardening site on land owned by Jeanne and Bob Nakamaru
  In 2007, the Nakamarus purchased a plot of land accessible to many of the families served by Centro Maya Xe’Kiyaqasiiwaan and started this community garden. Participating families are assigned a plot and receive instruction in organic gardening practices. A water supply and hoses provide water during the six-month dry season so that families can garden year-round.

  An educational organization supplied a batch of composting worms and trained a local resident in vermiculture (worm composting). He now oversees the composting operation for the community garden, in which worms convert kitchen waste to valuable organic worm castings used as an organic fertilizer.

  A future goal is to purchase land for additional gardens accessible to families in the other villages.

• Water filtration program provides families with a device that filters cooking and drinking water and eliminates diarrhea and parasites
  An important statement of the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee (UUSC) is that Access to safe, affordable water is a human right (http://www.uusc.org/content/environmental_justice) This program gives life to that idea!

  In coordination with a Rotary club from the state of Washington, The Centro Maya Project has provided over 300 water filtration devices to families. Each system filters five gallons per night and lasts for two to three years at which time a $25 replacement filter is required.

  In addition to providing devices to all the families in Salvando Vidas, Jeanne and Bob Nakamaru and the local volunteers have worked with midwives to get the water filtration devices to pregnant women and families with young children. Another 25 families need water filtration and most will need assistance in purchasing replacement filters.