Our Community
Who do we help?
Casa Colibrí helps the indigenous Maya of northwest Guatemala. Many of the people are refugees who fled their ancestral land during the 36-year genocidal civil war. Even though they returned home after the Peace Accords were signed in 1996, they still lack basic services such as clean water, electricity, and sanitation.
There are approximately 400 villages in the municipality of Barillas, province of Huehuetenango. Only eight doctors serve the population of 98,000. Those doctors are based in the city of Barillas. The people who live in the villages have no access to medical care because they live in remote areas and lack transportation. Even in urgent situations, it is often impossible to transport a patient to the nearest emergency facility, some three or four hours away by truck on very bad roads.
Where do we work?
Trying to put a pin in a map to show yourself where the Casa Colibri clinic is located? That can be harder than you think! Here’s your tutorial: It’s located in the northwest corner of Guatemala, very close to the border with Mexico in the province of Huehuetenango. Once you pass the market town of Barillas – even that isn’t shown on most maps – you then arrive in “our” territory where the villages and roads/trails are cataloged only on this singular hand-drawn map.
