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KFWH Collaborates With Dr. Patricia Dorn From Loyola University In Guatemala, 2015

KFWH Collaborates With Dr. Patricia Dorn From Loyola University In Guatemala, 2015

As the targeted focus for the 2015-2016 school year, KFWH Students, Founders and Board of Directors have all voted to collaborate with Dr. Patricia Dorn from Loyola University and her team in Guatemala. In keeping with the KFWH mission, our Action will consist of support for on-going research and community projects to help local people in Chagas-infested villages. KFWH will be involved in the education of villagers about Chagas disease in efforts to eliminate its transmission and in the supplemental nutrition of women as they undergo treatments.

Dr. Dorn is a molecular parasitologist who, for over twenty years, collaborated with researchers and students from diverse backgrounds with the common goal of halting the transmission of Chagas disease. In Guatemala, Dr. Dorn teams with Dr. Carlota Monroy, who heads the fieldwork and sociological investigations of the local communities.

KFWH Students have chosen to launch the following Actions through their fundraising efforts as their Immediate Goals for the 2015-2016 School Year:

  1. Providing food packets to women of child-bearing age who are subject to severe weight loss while receiving treatment. Focus is placed on this age group because the disease can be passed from mothers to their unborn children. Food packets are distributed by the local community leaders.
  2. Supplying the community with local materials that include lime, salt and local cement to smooth adobe floors and walls where Chagas-bearing bugs thrive, and teaching residents how to organize their houses to eliminate the vector bugs.
  3. Providing funding for chicken wire for villagers to construct animal pens that prevent bug carriers such as pigs from transmitting the disease into living spaces.
  4. Providing flash drives with instructional videos that can be used in communities to educate villagers about prevention and treatment of Chagas disease.

KFWH works toward equal and sustainable partnership with villagers in the planning and execution of all Actions.