Elderly Info

The food crisis in Guatemala is having a devastating effect on the elderly. Without enough to eat, many older people are becoming weak and malnourished, leaving them more vulnerable to illnesses that they cannot afford medical care for. They are unable to provide for even their most basic needs. In many cases, family members are unable to help as they struggle to feed themselves and their own children, leaving the elderly without any form of support and often living in heartbreaking conditions.

Please help us bring them the life-sustaining food and medical care that they so desperately need. General donations are used to ensure that we always have an adequate supply of food, medicine, and funds for meals, necessary medical treatment, and transportation. Monthly sponsorship would help feed one person, once a day for five days a week. Via blog and web album, we'll show you exactly where your aid is going and help you get to know the men and women whose lives you are changing.

If you would like to sponsor an elderly person for $35 a month, please click here and write "monthly sponsorship'' in the Other box. To make a one-time donation for medicine, rent, or other costs, please click here and enter "Elderly Care Program" in the Other box. Any questions can be directed to Amy at amy@mayanfamilies.org


Media on Mayan Families Elderly

Book:
Ancianos : Megan Gette + photos by Rob Bain, Nisa East, Rhett Hammerton and Hiroko Tanaka

Videos:
Mayan Families- Ancianos Stories : Nisa East

Mayan Families Elderly Feeding Care Program : Rhett Hammerton

Facing Hunger: Elderly in Rural Guatemala



Dec 13, 2012

Pedro Coroxon


























(A-92) Status: Sponsored as of Dec 16, 2012!
Needs: food, diapers, pain meds, water filter, double mattress
To provide Pedro with any of these needs, click here.
For more stories and photos of the ancianos in the Feeding Program, please consider purchasing a book compiled of our participants. All profits go to the Elderly. You can preview the book here.  

We duck into the small adobe room, where Pedro sits on the bed that takes up most of the space.
He lives in it alone, in a corner of a derelict courtyard across from a store selling expensive chips and soda.
He used to work in one of these stores, long time ago, he says. These days Pedro can't walk alone.
The pila-- the large concrete wash basin--is in the middle bordered in rooms occupied by other tenants of the compound.
His two daughters care for him, says one, while his three sons are drunks.
Twelve years ago his wife died of cancer.
He sleeps on a straw mat on the bed, and relies on diapers so his daughters won't have to clean up after him all the time.
His bladder's been bad for months. If he gets up he can't hold it in, not even to make it to the letrine--  the communal concrete toilet bowl over a hole in the ground.
Both live with their families down the mountain. Neither works; the one I talk to has five kids of her own.
There's no room for him to cook, so the only food he gets is delivered from the Program. He has no clean water to drink, no place to wash aside from the sink that is like a stage in the middle of its audience of apartments.
His daughter holds up one of his diapers-- this is the only one we've got left, she says. We'll have to start finding another solution if we can't find the money for more.

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