December 22nd, 2016

Tula in Guatemala - Reflections on 2016

By Ray Brunsting

As 2016 quickly comes to an end, Tula is proud to look back on its achievements in global development, both in Canada and abroad.

• In March 2016, Tula founder Eric Peterson signed an agreement with the Government of Canada (GoC) securing $7.6 million in co-financing for scaling up activities in Guatemala.
• The goal is to improve health coverage and surveillance for approximately 3.4 million people in northern Guatemala by 2020. The partnership includes the Guatemala’s Ministry of Health, Tigo Foundation and the Alliance for Nutrition in Guatemala, and McMaster University in Canada.
• The Tigo Foundation of Guatemala agreed to donate more than 3000 mobile telephones for Tula’s community eHealth system.
• In Guatemala, our sister organization TulaSalud completed in-service training courses in Maternal, New born and Child Health for 244 nurses to improve care and launched a training course in eHealth for 361 health personnel who want to build out our model.
• In 2016, we succeeded in helping MOH to provide telephone based local health coverage for approximately 900,000 Mayan people in the department of Alta Verapaz.
• Tula also contributed to the Government of Canada’s International Assistance Review through meetings with a Canadian parliamentary delegation in Guatemala in August 2016. In the report issued by the Parliamentary committee, TulaSalud is complimented as “…filling a [necessary] gap left by the state in rural parts of the country”.
• Eric Peterson was inducted into the Order of Canada as an advocate for indigenous health.

With another successful year behind us, Tula looks ahead to 2017; continuing to learn from its experiences, working with global partners and communities and contributing to global health equity.

Happy holidays from Tula and TulaSalud!