As a Summer Global Health Fellow at WK, I worked with Anne in communications and fundraising coordination as well as with the medical director to shadow team members and learn about all programs. These two pieces worked hand in hand to help me learn about doing global health on the ground and to share my learnings and perspectives on social media, blogs, and in donor communications. I also worked with the complex care team to help secure funding for patients with complex medical needs, including cancer, end-stage renal disease, surgical patients, and special needs children. It was a demanding role and now that I am at the end of this experience, I am eager to reflect on everything that I learned more in detail.

I worked in three different locations, throughout my internship: Antigua, Tecpan and Solola. For most of the summer I was in Antigua working with Anne and Karen, the marketing director, in communications and fundraising coordination. I created graphics and wrote the captions for all of the social media posts. Social media was a great source to share my knowledge based on first-hand experiences with supporters, donors, staff and volunteers. I especially enjoyed making the posts for a segment called “Kaqchikel Wednesday.” I was given a list of words in Kaqchikel with their translation in Spanish. My job was to pick a word, find an image owned by WK that fit the given word, and write a caption that included the word in Kaqchikel and that was related to the organization (values, mission, vision). Besides serving as a way to expand my vocabulary in Kaqchikel, I felt that this segment encompassed everything that I valued about WK: its passion to conserve Mayan languages, its commitment to its mission and values, and the fact that as beautiful as the pictures are, each one serves as a reminder that photos will never capture the true essence of the impact that WK has on its patients. In terms of fundraising, I helped with research and advertisement for WK’s new diabetes clinic called“GlucoSalud” and a Kaqchikel word book for major donors.

In Tecpan I worked with the team, composed of mostly indigenous women who offered healthcare in people’s native Mayan language. I had the opportunity to go on multiple home visits with members of the team in Tecpan. Most of the patients were elderly, indigenous women who suffered from diabetes. WK had an effective, long-term program to help its patients: for sixth months, a trained staff member visited them in their homes with a complete guide and a variety of activities to teach them how to live with this chronic disease.

One of my biggest projects was coordinating the Cincinnati Medical Team’s visit to Solola. I was in charge of scheduling transportation, booking hotels and finding affordable places to eat for the two weeks the team was staying.I accompanied the team during their clinic days in rural parts of Sololá to interpret and assist doctors. This was one of the most amazing experiences I have ever had. I listened to the patient’s stories and was part of their treatment plan and path to recovery.