Pedal 4 Pasos, the non-profit that loves free health care and pedaling bicycles! Our organization believes that access to health care is an essential and basic human right. We are very proud and excited to help raise funds and awareness for Primeros Pasos, a clinic in Guatemala which provides free health care for children and free health education workshops to women and children.
Our team likes to put our pedals where our mouths are though..... Last year we bicycled over 5,000km from Edmonton, Canada to Quetzaltenango, Guatemala through mountain ranges, thunderstorms and winding coastal roads to raise much needed funds for Primeros Pasos and to connect communities a continent apart.
This year, on August 16th, we are so very pleased to invite you to the 2nd Annual Pedal 4 Pasos Benefit Gala. An evening at The Haven Social Club (15120, Stony Plain Road, Edmonton AB) filled with delicious food, amazing live entertainment, a silent auction and a chance to support a great cause!
Cocktails, live entertainment and the silent auction will begin at 6pm and a beautiful 5 course Guatemalan themed dinner prepared by one of Edmonton’s top chefs will be served at 7pm. All of the proceeds from the dinner will go directly to Primeros Pasos to make a difference in the lives of so many children.
So please book Monday, August 16th off on your calendars in red felt marker, tell all of your friends, and come have an amazing evening while supporting a great cause!! Don't be shy, for tickets please contact Anne-Marie Jamin at jamin_anne@hotmail.com or at 780-993-1316 as soon as possible!
A class of eleven Vanderbilt undergraduate students have been spending the past few weeks working closely with Primeros Pasos. Prior to their visit, the students took a semester VISAGE (Vanderbilt Initiative for Scholarship And Global Engagement) course studying health, development and culture in Guatemala. The culmination of their learning experience was a three week trip to Quetzaltenango and surrounding areas to put their theory into practice and gain some on the ground research experience. Three-four students have been rotating weekly between the clinic, working on development related projects and doing data analysis on 5 years of Healthy Schools Program medical records. In the clinic, the students have been busy helping register patients, participating in the interactive health education classes, visiting schools in the community, revamping the look of the clinic with new coats of paint, and making new teaching materials. On the development side, small groups have been working on projects ranging from website updates & revision to electronic donor campaigns to new promotional materials. Each student is studying Spanish and living with a local Guatemalan family, getting the full cultural experience of Xela! Emily Veith, a rising Senior at Vanderbilt in the VISAGE says that her experience here “has provided [her] with a lot of insight as to how a NGO and clinic works in a developing country .”
We are thrilled to have these amazing eleven young students working with us and grateful for the incredible contribution they have made to Primeros Pasos!
To read more about Vanderbilt's Global Health Initiatives and the VISAGE Program, visit Vanderbilt Visage Program
With the help of Danielle Dittrich, Vanderbilt School of Nursing, Hope Through Healing Hands , and Sen. Bill Frist, Primeros Pasos has established a dedicated women's health clinical program this year. Danielle, a Vanderbilt Global Health Scholar recipient has been seeing patients since September. She has been administering routine Pap smears, consutls for menstrual irregularities, cervical cancer screenings and other gynecological and obsteric problems. Click here to learn more.
Primeros Pasos welcomed nearly 30 volunteers from Vanderbilt University during the typically known for the let- loose and party vibe Spring Break week of March 8th-12th this year. But these students had another thing in mind. Ten undergraduate students chose to do an Alternative Spring Break trip and came to Primeros Pasos to work, learn and play. They worked in two daycares that we serve in the Valley, spent time at the clinic and visited all the best sites in Xela and the surrounding areas. We thank them for their hard work and dedication to Primeros Pasos. Read more about Vanderbilt's Alternative Spring Break Program.
In addition, we were fortunate to host over 20 people from Project Pyramid, Vanderbilt's Owen Graduate School of Management created organization designed to cross the buisness and non-proft divide to find development solutions in countries in need. We were fortunate to have three Project Pyramid groups here with us working on 3 distictive projects; a Marketing/Branding Group, working with us to improve our on the ground communication with students, existing donors and potential donors, an Expansion Group, working to help us in planning the constructing a new clinic, and finally a "Plumpy Nut" Group, who is looking at the feasibility of a nutritional suppliment that can be locally produced and distributed in order to provide a healthy snack substitue and improve the state of malnutrition of children in the area.
It was a great pleasure to host these groups and we look forward to working with them in the months and years to come. Click here to read the press release from Vanderbilt University about Project Pyramid.
Big changes have been happening at Primeros Pasos in the past few months!
As we said goodbye to Antonette in September, we welcomed Gaby- our new Clinic Director, Anna-our Grant Writer, Maggie-our Children's Education Director, and Ariana-our Development Director. We are working hard to start the new year with fresh determination and innovative ideas about how to improve services to the children and adults of the Palajunoj Valley.
(Gaby, Anna, Maggie and Ariana)
We are hosting our first annual holiday give campaign!
This year, you can donated to Primeros Pasos in the name of someone special on your holiday list. That special person will then receive a certificate in the mail acknowledging their role in improving the health and well-being of the communities served by Primeros Pasos. If you are interested in giving the meaningful gift of health this year, visit our Give Health For the Holidays Campaign and learn how to give to individual programs in the name of someone on your holiday list.
We have a new online donation provider! Unlike our previous provider, Razoo.com does not charge a fee for each donation made by our wonderful supporters. Instead, they guarantee that 100% of your donations will go right where they belong- serving the health care and educational needs of the children and families of the Palajunoj Valley. Using our new system, you can designate where your donation will go and you can schedule automatic donation payments weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, quarterly or annually. We encourage you to sign up as a 5X500 sustaining member through this new provider! Thank you for your continued support!
Pedal 4 Pasos is a Bike Trip which will stretch across an entire continent from Edmonton, Alberta to Quetzaltenango, Guatemala.
Four Canadian cyclists, Matthew “Gus” Gusul, Cody McNalley, Genevieve Perreault-Murphy, and Anne-Marie Jamin will cover over 5,000 km and the trip will take place June - August 2009.
The inspiration
behind the adventure was created by Anne-Marie Jamin, former volunteer and long time supporter, to raise funds for Primeros Pasos.
Pedal 4 Pasos works with Change for Children, an Edmonton based organization, who partners with communities in developing countries that are struggling against poverty and hardships to improve access to basic human needs, healthcare and education.
With their partnership and support of Primeros Pasos, the local community in Guatemala can be linked to our Canadian community here in Edmonton.
Good Luck Anne-Marie, Gus, Cody, and Genevieve and See you all soon!
anderbilt University and the Inter-American 
Health Alliance this Friday, February 12th, 2010 from 
