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Health&Help — This charity project was implemented to create a free clinic for the local population in a remote area of Guatemala . Founded in 2015 by Viktoria Valikova an infectiologist from Ufa, Russia, who has been working in Central America since 2014. The Health&Help project has been fundraising on Boomstarter, and on 21 March 2016 we passed our target collecting 1,327,465 rubles for the construction of the clinic. This amounts to 110% of the planned sum. The total costs for the hospital will be around 3.5 million rubles, with 700,000 for the erection of buildings, 500,000 for the purchase of medical transport, 1.5 million rubles for medical equipment and 700,000 a year for on-going medicines and consumables. The Building work will be undertaken by volunteers and the local population. Every man in the village, where the clinic will be built, has pledged to work 5 days for free. Construction of the main building for the clinic is scheduled to commence in July 2016. The clinics medical staff will also be working as free of charge volunteers.
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Location
Initially, clinic construction was planned for the village of Sentinela, with a population of nearly 2,500 people. This is located in one of Guatemala's most mountainous areas, far away from big cities. However, in March 2016 the plans changed due to a series of armed conflicts over the allotting of land in Sentinela.
Hence construction will now take place in the village of Hutakah - Caserío Jutacaj (caserío de la aldea Xequemeyá, municipio de Momostenango, Totonicapan), with a population 8,000 people (excluding surroundings). A hospital is really needed in the village: there is no health center or health post nearby and a trip to the nearest hospital of Shela or Huehuetenango will take 4 – 5 hours.
Project History
In 2014 Victoria Valikova, the author of the project, an infectionist from Ufa, Russia, graduated from the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp (Belgium) majoring in "Tropical Medicine and Health Organization in countries with limited resources". In connection with the specifics of the profession, a large part of her training was devoted to the problems of third world countries, non-governmental organizations and the development of medical infrastructure in those countries. Out of the list of places where doctors and nurses were needed most, Victoria chose Guatemala. In this country, she was most moved by the overwhelming poverty and misery on display. There are no clinics or ambulances in the villages and they are far from big cities. Additionally there is no municipal transport, to get people to the cities.Traditional medicine in Guatemala is at the most basic level, there is normally only Healers and a local midwife. After returning to Russia, Victoria commenced work on the project. She wants to help people. The Nationality, religion or gender of people who come for help, are not important to her.
The principles of the work
The medical staff of the clinic and the volunteers, who help the project remotely, will work salary free. It is expected that the project will also be joined by doctors from countries where the Voluntary social year is well developed. This is a state-funded voluntary work program particularly for young adults. Lasting between six and eighteen months the time can be spent working abroad, in the poorer corners of the planet, and this experience can be recorded in the summary. According to Victoria, the project is designed to help people, not to make money:
We really want to help people, not to make money on them. Maybe my brain doesn't work correctly, but I don't want to earn money on someone's health. This is the main problem in my life, because I'll never be rich and never become famous. I can not work in private clinics and take money from people who are sick.