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



May 23, 2013

Margarita Can Cosme & Ricardo González





























(A-21, A-22) Status: Not Sponsored
Needs: Eye care, electricity, water filter
To help: www.mayanfamilies.org/donatenow "A-21, or A-22 [write needs, sponsorship etc.]"
To sponsor one for meals at $35 a month, or both at $70 a month, visit: http://mayanfamilies.org/DonateMonthly.aspx
To watch a video which features Margarita and Ricardo, click here

"It was a broken bottle to my face, that I lost my eyes," Margarita feels her way around the foyer to her home. She chats amiably about things that would leave others devastated. "One must leave it to God, who takes care of it."

Ricardo, her spouse, putters around the area making lunch with bad eyes too. Theirs is a life based on faith, putting their hands out into the empty air for help. Ricardo's problem is more recent, within the past couple of months-- "he had some drops, but not anymore." Margarita speaks for the two of them.

While she tells us of their children-- one who lives with them and helps with the expenses of the house, two other sons without wives and a married daughter-- Ricardo finishes preparing his lunch. There are flies everywhere, the dishes he's using are dirty. He brings the food to just outside the foyer and sits on some cardboard boxes. Margarita tells us he goes everyday bring a stack of wood for their stove-- it is clear from the curve of his spine that he's been doing this all his life.

Her tone is impressively optimistic as she tells us, "some time ago, we had our stove stolen, so my son spent all his money on another. We never had mattresses before, then Mayan Families got us three. I spent my life doing other people's laundry, till I lost my eyes." When they were interviewed for the video made a couple of years ago, they had been scavenging the trash for food.

But Margarita insists that "things are good lately." They could use basic necessities like a water filter and electricity, and especially sponsorship to receive their meals each day, as without this food they would be eating "just herbs and vegetables," or whatever they might find in the mountains or the trash.

This Sunday, Mayan Families will be hosting an optometrist/ophthalmologist medical group, and we plan to send Ricardo to have his eyes checked, as they are probably infected. If you would like to sponsor or donate one-time to this couple, please follow the links at the top of the page. Thank you!

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