Guatemala

Guatemala is where Atlas learned its most important lesson, and it was taught to us, not by us. At Hospitalito Atitlán, on the shore of Lake Atitlán, Ms. Lyn Dickey and Dr. Manuel Gonzalez showed us that what an outside organization assumes a hospital needs can have very little to do with what that hospital actually needs. Every collaboration Atlas has entered since has started the way this one did: by listening first. The work that grew from those conversations is practical and unglamorous, and it is what the local team asked for: a curriculum for pre-hospital care education, and support securing sustainable ambulance equipment for the crews who reach patients long before a hospital can.

Neither piece of this work is ours. The pre-hospital program belongs to the team at Hospitalito Atitlán and the communities it serves. The fellowship training belongs to Dr. Gonzalez and Dr. Martinez, and to the patients and trainees who benefit from it. Atlas's part was to listen, to make introductions through our network, and to put resources behind people who were already doing the work. Guatemala is the page where our model came from: local leaders set the priorities, and support follows their lead.