What we do
The Latin America Community Assistance Foundation (LACA) is dedicated to improving the lives of the poorest of the poor in rural Latin America. Founded in 1992 to conduct medical clinics in Honduras, LACA has expanded in the past 16 years to meet our clients’ urgent needs and help communities become healthy, educated, and empowered to determine their own future. LACA now works in Guatem
ala, Haiti, Mexico, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Panama, and Honduras. Major programs have included:
Urgent Needs Programs
Mobile Medical Clinics
Basic Needs: Food, Clothing, and Essential Supplies
Disaster Relief
Long-Term Programs
Health Education
Training for local health workers
Agriculture and Nutrition
Housing
Water projects
Scholarships
Adult Literacy
Vocational Training
Day care for infants through age 5, with medical, nutrition, hygiene and school readiness components. Partnering with local community leadership, LACA typically sponsors several projects clustered around small, remote rural towns and villages where people live in extreme poverty, lacking food, adequate water and shelter, medical care, economic opportunities and basic infrastructure (such as roads and electricity.) Examples of our integrated programs include:
In the Salvadoran town of Tacachico and nearby hamlets LACA has operated five annual mobile medical clinics, provided seeds and fertilizer for especially impoverished families to grow their own food, conducted health education classes on diabetes, blood pressure, and self-breast exams for women, as well as training local community health workers to test blood sugar levels. In partnership with local government, we co-sponsored 2 new wells and water distribution systems built by the local citizens. We also provide scholarships to nine university students who do volunteer work in the local community. In Baraderes, Haiti, LACA supports a program to feed 250 people aged 75 to 100, and builds houses for families with inadequate shelter. In another location, our projects include university scholarships, tuition, books, and uniforms for 35 high school students, as well as emergency funding to feed families with children. In the countries where we have programs, Board Members, volunteer doctors, nurses, pharmacists and others visit to monitor on-going projects, counsel our scholarship students, and discuss the community’s other needs with local civic leaders. We all pay our own travel expenses, and we are hosted in-country by our local partners. Many medical supplies and other resources are donated. As a result, over 95% of all funds go directly to helping the poor in Latin America.
