WINGS launches new project in Petén
Petén - February 2009
WINGS is thrilled to announce the 2009 launch of a new program in the Petén region of Guatemala. Over the course of the next five years, with the support of the Richardson Charitable Trust, WINGS plans to bring a combination of its current programming – including Family Planning, WINGS for Men, and Youth WINGS – to this unique area of Guatemala, with the goals of contributing to healthier communities, alleviating poverty, and preserving biodiversity in the region.
Petén is the northernmost department in Guatemala, most well known as the home of Tikal National Park. With this new project, however, WINGS will focus on nine communities within or immediately bordering environmentally sensitive areas of the Sierra del Lacandón National Park, which is located in La Libertad municipality on the western border of Petén. Guatemala’s second largest park, Sierra del Lacandón covers an area of approximately 500,000 acres of rainforest, lakes, mountain ranges and plains. The park is home to hundreds of species, including at least 27 mammals, 424 birds, 97 reptiles, 32 amphibians, and 112 fish, of which several – the jaguar, puma, anteater, and howler monkey, among others – are endangered.
A combination of factors makes this area an ideal target for WINGS’ programming. Of the estimated 3,800 people living within the nine communities, approximately 53% belong to an indigenous ethnic group and approximately 65% are under 20 years of age. Education in the area is extremely limited; only 41% of youth between the ages of 6 and 15 attend school, with the vast majority dropping out by the age of 10 or 11. Existing local health promoters and midwives have limited training and resources to provide family planning information and services. Meanwhile, the precious ecological diversity of the Sierra del Lacandón area is being threatened by high population growth in the area.
As a result, WINGS will be partnering with local NGOs, community leaders, and health facilities to increase family planning education and services in the area. Most notably, WINGS will be collaborating with the Nature Conservancy and its Guatemalan partner organization Defensores de la Naturaleza, a Petén-based NGO with over 20 years of experience working on conservation issues in the region. Defensores de la Naturaleza will contribute both local resources – office space and transportation, for example - and a close connection to the community, creating a strong foundation from which WINGS can build the Petén Project.
During the first year of the program, WINGS aims to increase knowledge about reproductive health and family planning by conducting regular educational talks and home visits in the target communities; to increase access to temporary and permanent family planning methods by providing referrals for methods and by coordinating with APROFAM and other family planning service providers in the area; and to build capacity by training individuals and organizations in the area to provide family planning information and methods. In subsequent years, WINGS plans to expand the Petén Project to include a men’s outreach component (Year 2) and youth outreach program (Year 3), while continuing the core family planning programming. The ultimate goal of the Petén Project is to develop, over the course of the project’s anticipated five-year duration, sufficient local capacity to provide reproductive health and family planning services, thereby making WINGS’ direct presence unnecessary.
Although WINGS will certainly face obstacles in bringing its programming to Petén, including the long distance between the target area and the WINGS headquarters in Antigua and the logistical difficulty of accessing some of these remote communities, WINGS is thrilled to have this unique opportunity to work in this underserved area to increase knowledge about and access to reproductive health and family planning services, and thereby help to preserve Guatemala’s priceless biodiversity.