Guyton Global Health Initiative 2018 Year-in-Review
In 2018, the Guyton Global Health Initiative continued to fund preventive care for children served by Shanti Ashram. The Arthur Guyton Foundation provided a $1,500 grant to the International Center for Child and Public Health (ICPH) at Shanti Ashram. This translated into comprehensive preventive health care for 100 at-risk children. This provided nutritional supplements, parental counseling, parental life skills education, critical vaccines, deworming tablets, anemia screening, and blood grouping for each child. In 2019, Shanti Ashram looks to expand its preventive services to more children, while operating an increasingly busy outpatient clinic. For every $15 donated to our foundation, a child’s life was changed forever; many of the vaccines grant children lifelong immunity to deadly and debilitating diseases. Over the past two years funding the ICPH, the Arthur Guyton Foundation has helped pay for hundreds of vaccine doses, and has contributed to a decline in preventable childhood diseases in the greater Coimbatore area in southern India.
The Guyton Global Health Initiative issued a $500 grant to the Rotary Foundation’s End Polio campaign, to eradicate polio. Polio remains in three countries: Nigeria, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. End Polio workers are active in all three countries, delivering the vaccine to at-risk children and adults. We were proud to partner with the Shepherdstown Rotary Club for this cause once again. We have partnered with the Shepherdstown Rotary every year since 2014.
In September of 2017, Hurricanes Maria and Irma devastated the Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Dominica, and other islands of the Caribbean. The Arthur Guyton Foundation raised $700 to help rebuild Puerto Rico after the storm. The donations went directly to Unidos por Puerto Rico (United for Puerto Rico,) which provides relief to individuals and small businesses in Puerto Rico affected by the hurricanes. They continue to work to restore the infrastructure of the community and help people repair and replace their damaged property.
The Guyton Global Health Initiative was also happy to provide travel scholarships to five members of Rice University Global Brigades for their trip in May of this year to Honduras.
Rice University Global Brigades successfully completed a medical, dental, and public health brigade trip to Honduras from May 3 to May 10, 2018. Their team of 29 Rice University students spent the week setting up medical clinics and completing public health projects in various rural Honduran communities. These communities were often impoverished and located miles away from the amenities of the city, with many of the rural residents lacking access to both regular healthcare and crucial basic health infrastructure like running water and bathrooms. All Global Brigades members were expected to fund their own travel. Many spent time working at the NRG Center in Houston to raise money. The $200 provided to each member by the Arthur Guyton Foundation helped students who who would have otherwise needed to use loans or family resources to travel for their service trip. To read the full press release on the trip to Nicaragua, click here.
In 2019, the Arthur Guyton Foundation plans to continue the Guyton Global Health Initiative, soliciting grant applications at the start of the new year. With your help, we can make an even greater positive impact on the health of children around the world. Donate today using PayPal (top right corner of the webpage) to end 2018 with a tax-deductible gift to children around the world and here at home in West Virginia! Check and money-order donations may also made out to “The Arthur Guyton Foundation” and mailed to:
The Arthur Guyton Foundation
1506 W King St
Martinsburg, WV 25401
