In the fall of 2010, Dr. Marta Julia Ruiz, a physician from Antigua Guatemala, made a presentation at Sarah Lawrence College about Abriendo Oportunidades, an ongoing project sponsored by several organizations, including the Population Council. This visit was part of a larger US tour hosted by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) to honor Dr Ruiz as the 2010 recipient of the organization’s humanitarian award for her efforts on behalf of young women in Guatemala.
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkT5L9KM09k]
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkT5L9KM09k]
Abriendo Oportunidades is a national program that provides “the most vulnerable indigenous Mayan girls and young women in Guatemala with personal and professional skills, mentorship and opportunities” to help break the poverty cycle and enable Guatemalan girls to reach their full potential. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwSFCtYZB7U]
At the luncheon following her presentation, Dr. Ruiz and I (Caroline) had the opportunity to talk. I asked her why she was interested in developing genetic services in Guatemala. She told me a story of attending to a young woman whose newborn baby was born with many birth defects. The baby died without having a diagnosis, and Dr. Ruiz described her anguish in not being able to provide the woman with information for future pregnancies. This story is one of many such stories that occur regularly in Guatemala. She invited our team to come to her country to assess the current state of genetic services and to meet the practitioners caring for individuals and families with genetic conditions.
In the ensuing months, we received a small anonymous grant to cover the cost of our trip. Once we gave her the timeframe for our trip, she made all of the appointments with the healthcare providers we subsequently met while we were there.
And our pilot project was born…
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