International Services

Guatemala has among the worst performances in the world in child growth attainment. Fourty-four percent of all children under age five experience stunted growth, due to lack of nutrition.

There is also a very high ratio of children to adults as a result of the country's 36-year civil war that ended in 1996. The war resulted in 100,000 deaths and 1 million refugees.

• 50 percent of the population in Guatemala is under 18.
• 42.6 percent of the population is between 0 and 14 years old.
• 75 percent of the population live below the poverty line.
• 16 percent live in extreme poverty.
• 59 percent lack access to any health care services.

The Shalom Foundation is a faith-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that provides life-changing medical and surgical care to impoverished children in Guatemala. Shalom Foundation opened the Moore Pediatric Surgery Center in Guatemala City in February 2011, a facility supported in part by Children’s Hospital. Volunteer medical mission teams from various U.S. children’s hospitals, including Vanderbilt, use this space for collaboration with local medical specialists to provide health, healing and hope to children and their families.

Since 2005, Monroe Carell has sponsored 26 one-week pediatric surgical trips to Guatemala City to provide surgical care to children who are in desperate need. Each trip has involved one of four pediatric surgical specialties: ENT, Ophthalmology, Orthopaedics and Urology. Surgical mission trips typically happen twice per year in collaboration with the Shalom Foundation. During our mission trips, our teams have performed over 1,200 surgeries. Each surgical trip includes 15 to 17 Vanderbilt faculty and staff members and provides a unique opportunity to serve children in need.