Acupuncture is not new to Guatemala. A Guatemalan medical doctor, Eduardo Cáceres, wrote Texto Practico de Acupuntura Moderna as an elaborate diagnostic and treatment source book on Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) (Centro Mesoamericano de Estudios Sobre Tecnología Apropriada (CEMAT), Guatemala, 1986).  Medicina Maya Tradicional, TCM with herbs and puncture medicine among Maya people in the Yucatan (Promoción de Servicios de Salud y Educación Popular, [PRODUSSEP], et al, Mexico City, 1996).  Some clinics in larger Guatemalan cities serving primarily the well-to-do offer acupuncture.   In the 1970s, acupuncture was used in a rural clinic in the Highlands region in a limited manner.  Since the signing of the Peace Accords in 1996, some Japanese practitioners have given treatments in the same region.

Lay health workers called "heath promoters" are usually educated formally through the sixth grade and then receive special training in basic medicine for their communities.  Heath promoters learned basic acupuncture concepts through training provided by the National Association of Community Health Services, (ASECSA).  Some health promoters learned similar concepts and needling in Mexico while living in United Nations-sponsored refugee camps through the 1980s.  ASECSA is now the non-governmental organization (NGO) with which GUAMAP partners in Guatemala. ASECSA provides strategic support for our training courses and our monitoring follow-ups after training.

Between 1994 and 2002, GUAMAP worked in cooperation with an NGO based in Guatemala City, with a field office in the Peten. Now GUAMAP works in cooperation with ASESCA's Peten office.

GUAMAP provides acupuncture training using Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) for health promoters who were earlier thoroughly trained in health work basic concepts.  Health promoters then use what they learn to treat men, women and children in their home communities.  Since 1995, GUAMAP has trained some 95 health promoters in the northern region, reaching nine different communities. GUAMAP and GUAMAP trained health promoters have recorded 5000+ treatments and are developing a method of data collection to record the outcomes. Requests for training come from the communities themselves through local health committees to ASECSA.   Some communities have already been trained in working with emergency situations employing acupuncture.

GUAMAP trainers and staff have produced two manuals, both in Spanish: one in basic acupuncture and one in emergency medicine.  GUAMAP established training protocols in 1999 for the basic (level I) and intermediate (level II) students and switched to the exclusive use of disposable needles in its training and re-supply functions.

GUAMAP Board of Directors

Future GUAMAP Work

Our work in training acupuncturists is entering a second phase.  The population we serve has been resettled into new communities in the Peten and the Alta Verapaz region for much of the 1990s.  They are now becoming integrated into the rural areas where their communities are located.  These new communities' medical clinics provide treatments, including acupuncture and midwifery services.

GUAMAP will focus on continuing its basic courses and supporting additional qualified health promoters to train at the beginning level.  As part of our presence in the community clinics, we are also looking at promoting the use of local plant medicines, re-supplying limited amounts of Chinese herbs, and providing additional equipment, acupuncture needles of various sizes, and pharmaceutical medicines by request. Our goal is to have local health promoters take over the teaching function by the year 2005.

Geography of Service Area

As of 2003 GUAMAP's work is carried out in the northern region of the Peten Department.  The geographic service area represents 33% of Guatemalan territory and approximately 12% of the population.

The Peten was a largely uninhabited area until the 1960s when land colonization program for poor ladinos and indigenous was promoted by the government.  The Peten rainforest is of great biological importance to the Western world and, as a part of the intercontinental oxygen-producing rain forests, to the entire world.  Its semi- tropical to tropical climate is hot and humid, resting only 127 meters above sea level.  Some species are dying out and others are threatened in Peten through an over concentration of population, drastic lumber cutting, use of dangerous insecticides and, during the recent war era, unregulated pollution, land mines, bombs, and defoliants.  This delicate semi-rainforest region is a unique source of plant medicines. Peten contains many rivers, lakes and swamps, and two mountain ranges.

It shares the Sierra de Lacandon with Mexico on its western border, and the Montañas Mayas with Belize on its eastern side.  It supplies natural rubber that is harvested by the low-impact methods of the rubber cutters, known as los chicleros.  The Peten is not in a volcanic zone.  The Mexican states of Chiapas, Campeche, and Quintana Roo border the Peten on the west and north, and Belize borders it on the east.  It represents some 33% of all of Guatemala land area.  There are few paved roads in its interior, and torrential rains flood out large stretches of low lying swamp areas.

The population center of the Peten is the island town of Flores, situated in Lake Peten Itza, and the adjoining towns of San Benito and Santa Elena.  One of only two international airports in Guatemala is located there.  Indigenous population prior to the 1990s included: Itzá, Kekchí, Lacandon Chol, Lacandon del Norte, Maya Mopán, and Maya Yucateco.  By the late 1990s, Maya from the highlands in mixed populations settled in Peten adding to the indigenous population.  The ancient Maya city of Tikal is a common destination for tourists who travel to it on a paved road.  There is continual bus service (about 12-hour trip) from Flores to Guatemala City.

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