Kakchikal woman weaving traditional Guatemalan design. Photo courtesy of Meg Pier
ASHA is committed to partnering with institutions that promote American values and encourage leadership through innovation, equity, and freedom of expression. ASHA grant-funded libraries, schools, and hospitals highlight American ideals and practices, spotlight the generosity of the American people, and catalyze collaboration between people in the U.S. and citizens of other countries.  
From the Director
By Anne Dix, Ph.D.
Director, American Schools and Hospitals Abroad

G rowing up in Guatemala, I was surrounded by indigenous people. People of Mayan descent make up the majority of the country’s population and speak about 26 different languages including Mam and Q'eqchi'. It was in that backdrop that I gained a unique perspective regarding the social and economic challenges faced by Indigenous Peoples and a better understanding of some aspects of indigenous culture. I am careful not to waste food, observant of the importance of extended family, cognizant of the living earth around me as being more than background to human interests--part and parcel to our very existence. I understand that a generation after a brutal civil war that disproportionately impacted indigenous and poor Guatemalans and left thousands dead, the country is still in the process of recovering some of the victims of genocide and working through deep spiritual and emotional wounds. I have been humbled by how indigenous Guatemalans struggle for a sense of agency, despite the injustices they encounter every day.
Indigenous activist Rosalina Tuyuc leaves photographs of victims of Guatemala's civil war outside the Congress in Guatemala City on March 13. (Photo courtesy of Esteban Biba/ EPA-EFE), Washington Post
So when I see USAID in the formative stages of an Indigenous Peoples policy, and I witness ASHA partners such as Universidad del Valle and Hughes Schools incorporating indigenous traditional knowledge and culture into contemporary paradigms, I feel a deeper satisfaction. I’m proud of the work our Partners do to help Indigenous Peoples in all of the places they work. It's good to see a generation of indigenous students moving past marginalization into economic and social inclusion and prosperity that allows them to think past survival. 
What's best about it is that they're integrating knowledge not native to their cultures into their worlds without compromising the rich heritages passed to them from their ancestors. As we unveil our RFP sometime in June and announce the 2018 grantees in September of this year, I am hopeful that there will be more indigenous communities impacted by our work. In the meantime, I'm pleased to share a few stories from our Partners who are making a difference in these very special communities. As they say in Mam, Chjónta che
--thank you to you all.
Focus on Indigenous Peoples
By Maxine Hillary,
ASHA Public Affairs and
Social Inclusion Advisor
H ill People, Scheduled Tribes, Pastoralists, Aboriginal, First Peoples, Native American, American Indians, First Nations, tribal people. They are the Tuareg of the Sahara desert in North Africa, the Rohingya in Burma, and the Saami of Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Russia . They include Quechuan-speakers in the Andean region, the Maori of New Zealand, the Lakota tribes in the United States—and oldest of all cultures, the San of Botswana who have inhabited their territory for over 70,000 years.
Saami of Sweden keep the tradition of reindeer herding alive.
Photo courtesy of Colorado College
The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP or Declaration) was adopted by the United Nations on September 13, 2007. The UNDRIP protects collective rights that may not be addressed in other human rights instruments that emphasize individual rights. It also safeguards the individual rights of indigenous people. The product of almost 25 years of deliberation by U.N. member states and indigenous groups, the United States agreed to support the Declaration in 2010.  
In the Andes, Quechua speakers descend from the Inca indigenous people.
Photo courtesy of Harvard University
The Declaration has provided visibility to Indigenous Peoples and begun a slow process of mainstreaming indigenous issues into broader development strategies. But ASHA Partners have been assisting Indigenous Peoples in the countries they work in for many years. 
The bison is sacred to the Lakota and other Northern Plains tribal people in the United States. After nearing extinction on tribal lands, it is making a come back. There are 6.8 self-identified American Indians in the US on and off of tribal lands.

Photo courtesy of Village Earth
Maori fishermen make their living from the ocean just as their seafaring ancestors did.

Photo courtesy of NZ Fishing World
As development strategies increasingly include Indigenous Peoples, we encourage consultation from concept to evaluation. What better way to learn how best to help a community than to ask members to engage in the planning stages?  USAID will soon launch a policy on Indigenous Peoples. ASHA looks forward to joining our Agency in encouraging meaningful engagement with indigenous communities on their journey to self-reliance. 
Spotlight on Our Partners
EARTH University Graduate Brings a Smile to an Indigenous Community

by Alejandro Bolaños, Director of Marketing and Communications
EARTH University

F or at- risk indigenous children and youth, EARTH University graduate Karina Poveda (Class of 2013) builds educational interdisciplinary spaces to explore themes of environmental consciousness and values. She offers free workshops to adults on knowledge sharing, women's empowerment, human rights, food security, sustainable agricultural innovation, entrepreneurship, and added-value processes. She accomplishes this through Sembrando Sonrisas (Sowing Smiles), her community development volunteer project in Talamanca, rural Costa Rica.

The initiative grew from Karina and fellow student, Marybell Muñoz as a graduation project, in which they focused on strengthening the Caribbean Costa Rican community of Tanagra, with a population of approximately 150 people. Karina remembers: “My EARTH graduation project partner Marybell and I wanted to focus on community development processes, but we didn’t know where. After visiting the community of Tanagra, we realized there were so many things we could help with: vegetable gardens, pest control, agricultural inputs, just to name a few. We soon realized that the problems ran much deeper than that. So, we decided to focus on social and organizational fortification, which turned out to be a very enriching experience.”
Karina – now a staff member of EARTH Futures platform at EARTH Universit y explains, “The first objective was helping women with self-image and confidence. Jorge Barahona, EARTH’s psychologist, developed a workshop on empowerment. After that, we focused on their diet, which is centered mostly on plantains. So, we brought them a supply of nutritious and filling rice and beans. We offered them advice on how to invest the little money they had to meet nutritional goals. Valerie Rangel, a food-processing engineer, gave a workshop on accessible ways to achieve a balanced diet. We worked together in order to get them to plant more green leafy vegetables and grains. We addressed business development. A friend of mine, a business student at the University of Costa Rica, helped them identify which of their abilities could be used to earn more income.”

Coupled with this, they planned a field day for the kids. Different game stations were created with activities reflective of relevant themes.

“Kids in the Ngäbe-Buglé community aren’t accustomed to coordinated leisure activities. We wanted them to have fun, but also to have some productive takeaways – better gifts for the season than the traditional toy deliveries. Our recreational activities are imbued with social and environmental themes. Where this community lives, there is little arboreal diversity because they are engulfed by banana plantations. We talked about the many species of flora and fauna. We spoke with them about water, its importance and its relation to health. We worked on self-esteem and education. We also tackled the subject of rights, including labor rights, being that an important number of the community’s men are presently striking against banana companies in the area.”
The day of activities included a visit with EARTH graduate Elizabeth Zurdo (’15, Panama), a member of the Ngäbe-Buglé peoples who works as an agriculture teacher in Panama. She shared her story about overcoming obstacles.

Karina reflected on Elizabeth’s transformation. “Working with Elizabeth Zurdo was spectacular. I noted the changes she’s undergone since the day I met her at the university. She isn’t the same timid girl. She’s an empowered woman."

During the group’s visit to Sixaola, Karina worked with Iron Kids of the World Foundation to document the community’s issues with potable water. The homemade wells used to collect rainwater are often contaminated with pathogens and with agrochemicals that have runoff or blown in from the large, conventional banana operations nearby.
Karina and some of the children from the Ngäbe-Buglé community.

Photo courtesy of Ana Laura Araya
Thanks to this collaboration between Iron Kids of the World Foundation and EARTH University’s volunteers, in 2018, 100 potable water filters were purchased and installed in the Tanagra and Savala communities, both located in Sixaola. Shoes and biodegradable soap were delivered to the families and people from both communities were inoculated to reduce the risk of intestinal parasites.
In 2019, Sembrando Sonrisas continues developing spaces for the empowerment and education of indigenous people of all ages, in addition to supporting access to clean water, healthcare, and other vital services. This initiative hopes to raise the visibility of Sixaola’s Ngäbe-Buglé.

“We want to continue working on entrepreneurial programs, especially with women. We also hope to find more professionals with skills to offer and energy to dedicate,” Karina says.

Through six years of collaboration, Sembrando Sonrisas has forged a strong bond with the community, earning their trust and playing a crucial role in its growth. Asked if she’d received any noteworthy feedback from the community, Karina recalls, “One time we brought a group from EARTH, and Mr. Santos, an elder of the community told them, “Before Karina came into our lives, we were like a leaf that had fallen to the ground. Her presence was like a gust of wind that picked us up and kept us moving forward.”

If you’d like to learn more about Sembrando Sonrisas or how to lend support, please contact Karina at kpoveda@earth.ac.cr or visit www.earth.ac.cr .
Kudjip Hospital Delivers Hope to Pregnant Women 

by Beth Clayton Luthye,
Nazarene Compassionate Ministries
An emergency C-section ensured the delivery of two healthy baby girls.

Photo courtesy of Dr. Scott Dooley
I n February 14, 2019, Dr. Scott Dooley was on call at Kudjip General Hospital of Jiwaka Province in Papua New Guinea when he was brought in to attend to a pregnant woman having a difficult labor. What neither Dr. Dooley or the mother knew was that she was carrying twins.

Dr. Dooley successfully delivered the first twin—a healthy baby girl. He was using ultrasound to check the position of the second twin when the baby’s heart rate dropped to a dangerously low level. The baby was dying though inches out of reach. He and the obstetrics team urgently prepped the mother for an emergency C-section. While the operating theater was being made ready, the baby’s heart rate improved slightly, only to drop again. Both the obstetrics team and the surgical team acted quickly, and a second healthy baby girl was delivered through a successful Cesarean section. 

A surgery such as this in a stateside urban hospital can be considered fairly routine. But in rural Papua New Guinea, it's nothing short of a miracle.
The medical staff at Kudjip, which is made of both American doctors and indigenous medical professionals, delivered more than 3,000 babies in 2018; of those, 376 were delivered by C-section. These services are essential in a country with a particularly high rate of maternal and newborn mortality. According to the World Health Organizatipm, as many as nine mothers and 24 newborn babies die for every 1,000 births in Papua New Guinea.
Kudips's maternity ward, birthplace of more than 3,000 babies in 2018.

Photo courtesy of Dr. Sheryl Uyeda
Kudjip is located in the Western highlands of Papua New Guinea, a South Pacific country that is home to hundreds of indigenous tribes, 80 percent of whom live in rural areas. A mission hospital that has been serving since 1967, it is currently the only faith-based hospital in the country to have been named a provincial referral hospital by the government. The medical facility has been growing, thanks in large part to its partnership with USAID/ASHA and Nazarene Compassionate Ministries, Inc.

The hospital also serves as the headquarters for a collective of other medical programs, including a Rural Health Services program that provides care for tens of thousands of indigenous community members through six permanent and mobile clinics. The Kudjip Outpatient Department treats about 3,300 patients each month—40,000 yearly and is a major part of the hospital’s work.

The College of Nursing at Kudjip graduates about 40 nursing officers from Papua New Guinea each year. A Community-Based Health Care program trains community health committees and village birth attendants throughout the country, even as far as the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu off its southern coast.

In FY 2013, USAID awarded the Nazarene Compassionate Ministries $800,000 to build staff quarters. The hospital’s remote rural location makes it difficult for staff to be able to live anyplace that isn’t over an hour’s drive away. Having staff close makes it easier for them to serve the community for routine, scheduled, and emergency procedures
Children's Hospital Juan Pablo II Offers Hope in Mixco, Guatemala
Maria E. Santamarina, Esq.
Grants Development & Advancement

W hen five-year-old Jordan started hemorrhaging through his nose and mouth, his family in a small village in El Quiche, Guatemala took him to the national hospital of Quiché where he was diagnosed with thrombocytopenic purpura . The treatments that followed involved expensive medications, blood transfusions, and six hospitalizations. He was referred to the Children’s Hospital Juan Pablo II in Mixco to be evaluated by the hematologist who performed a bone marrow aspiration and sent him back to the hospital in Quiché.
Jordan receives medical care at Juan Pablo that he cannot get anywhere else in Guatemala.
Photo courtesy FFTP
Jordan started hemorrhaging again and it became necessary to perform surgery to remove his spleen. He returned with his family to the Children’s Hospital for the procedure on February 7. 

Ever since Jordan was diagnosed, his parents have struggled to provide the best medical care for him, constantly traveling to hospitals in search of a treatment to cure his disease. Their entire family has pitched in to help pay for his medications. The good news was that a program to help poor families pay for medical care meant that the family was not burdened with the costs of the surgical procedure and the seven-day hospitalization stay. 

 Childrens's Hospital San Juan Pablo II is also a training ground for doctors who know the country and the indigenous people of Guatemala.
Photo courtesy of FFTP.
Founded in 1985, the Children’s Hospital Juan Pablo II is the largest health program operated by Caritas Archdiocese of Guatemala and the only hospital that provides comprehensive healthcare to women, children and adolescents with limited resources in the country. It provides services to children from birth to 17 years of age in more than 20 different pediatric specialties, and women in the area of maternity and gynecology. It is the only non-profit hospital that specializes in adolescent health care in Guatemala where 58% of the population is under 20 years of age and nearly half of all teenage girls are pregnant or already mothers. The hospital also offers emergency care services 24 hours a day, seven days per week, and specialized services to the general population. 

Food For The Poor (FFTP), is a nonprofit organization with a mission to improve the health, economic, and social conditions for millions of poor in Latin America and the Caribbean. FFTP has received three ASHA grants to improve the Children’s Hospital. They include construction of a waste water treatment plant, installation of a new Aluzinc roof and replacement of the interior drop ceiling, installation of a hospital-wide solar power generating system and the procurement of new energy efficient laundry equipment, an emergency generator, and purchase of medical equipment and an automated record-keeping system in order to improve the efficiency of internal hospital operations. FFTP also receives medical equipment and supplies from USAID’s Limited Excess Property Program (LEPP) on behalf of the Children’s Hospital.
Announcements
Hadassah Cuts Ribbon on New Cardiac Unit

On May 29, Hadassah Hospital Mount Scopus inaugurated the first advanced cardiac catheterization unit serving Jerusalem’s northern neighborhoods. The Cath Lab was donated by the USAID/ASHA through Hadassah , the Women’s Zionist Organization of America and will provide life-saving services to thousands each year. Research shows that Israeli women, particularly in traditional families, quickly call an ambulance for their loved ones and neighbors, but are reluctant to call an ambulance for themselves, even when suffering a potentially fatal heart attack. The Israel Heart Society reports that women come to the emergency room an average 59 minutes later than men, decreasing their chance of survival and increasing the chance of significant heart damage. For more info, click on the photo.
HopeXchange launches Women's Cancer Center in Ghana

On May 14, US Ambassador to Ghana Stephanie Sullivan officially inaugurated the Breast and Cervical Cancer Department at HopeXchange Medical Center in Kumasi Ghana. As part of this, she launched the Pathology Laboratory that was funded through the ASHA grants. This Laboratory is indispensable for cancer diagnoses. The Pathology Laboratory is the only one in the country that has the necessary equipment and human resources that can quickly diagnose cancer cells during surgical interventions. To learn more, click on the photo.
University of Indiana Lilly School Cross-Border Philanthropy Review

In May the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy rolled out its report, “The Changing Landscape of U.S. Cross-Border Philanthropy,” in partnership with the ASHA. The project was managed by Dr. Glenn Rogers, Senior Partnership Advisor for USAID/ASHA and a USAID Foreign Service Officer since 1992. 
The project was important because ASHA has a very large number of applicants – more than we can fund. So we began asking questions such as, "Who are our partners? What’s the new landscape of the nonprofit world that’s engaging in these activities abroad? How can we be more strategic in engaging with our partners, but also learn more about these new, emerging partners?" The research gathered during the project will help ASHA educate individuals and organizations working in this space about overall trends, educate our partners on those same trends, as well as disseminate critical information that they need and want to know about the sector, and help institutions we cannot fund find other mechanisms from which they might be able to receive assistance. To learn more about the project, click o n the picture above. 
Foreign Service National Fellow Returns to Mission in Afghanistan

Our colleague Tariq Achakzai f rom Afghanistan who received a prestigious Foreign Service National Fellowship to come to DC to serve as an Acquisition and Assistance Officer has returned to the Afghanistan Mission. Tariq began working in ASHA in early April and quickly proved to be an asset and a most beloved staff member. So long Tariq. We will miss you.
New Potential Funding Opportunity

USAID invites organizations, companies, academic and research institutions, and investors to participate in bolstering investment through unorthodox partnerships of direct interest to private sector institutions with a focus on social return on investment, including in education, health, and other areas of locally led development.  The Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) first Addendum, "New Directions in Advancing Locally Led Development," seeks Expressions of Interest on the following: Engaging the Local Private Sector; Conflict, Post-Conflict, and Non-Permissive Environments; Effective Partnerships; The Changing Role of the Donor; and Local Giving, Philanthropy, and Other Private Resources. Expressions of Interest (no more than two pages) are due to LLD-BAA@usaid.gov no later than 11:59pm EDT on Friday, July 12, 2019. 
On Memorial Day, ASHA honors all Americans who have died in military service to our country and victims of violence everywhere.
If you would like to receive ASHA updates, bulletins, and newsletters, please click HERE