Capacity Building

Across Guatemala, there is an urgent need for better access to reproductive health and family planning information and services. While WINGS’ programs currently focus on the geographic areas where we are able to have the most immediate, direct, and significant impact given our limited resources, we recognize the need for our programs to be implemented nationwide.

In order to broaden the scope of our work, WINGS partners with other non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and public service providers, maximizing limited resources and taking advantage of comparative strengths and core competencies in order to expand program coverage.

Some examples of our partnerships include:

  • Training other organizations in our program methodology so that they can replicate and/or adapt our work in other regions;
  • Training staff members at partner organizations in sexual and reproductive health, reproductive risk, family planning, and cervical cancer, so that they can share accurate information about these issues with their clients;
  • Sharing our educational materials with other groups for use in their programs;
  • Directly funding the services of other organizations, where they have existing capacity or expertise (for example subsidizing the provision of family planning services at clinics);
  • Providing funds for the implementation of WINGS projects by other organizations, where they have better access to and understanding of a specific geographical area;
  • Developing programs in partnership with other agencies in order to combine resources and expertise and divide responsibilities.

Since 2006, WINGS has supported comprehensive reproductive health and family planning programming in the Sololá region in partnership with Vivamos Mejor, a local non-profit organization with 20 years of experience working in this remote area. With WINGS’ support and training, as well as direct program collaboration where appropriate, Vivamos Mejor has rolled out all major elements of WINGS’ programming, including family planning, youth peer education, and cervical cancer detection and treatment. In 2008, training sessions for men’s groups will be added to the existing program elements.

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