CAMO volunteers help to meet the need in Honduras

ORRVILLE, Ohio – Fifty area professionals returned Sunday from Honduras after one week of serving with Central American Medical Outreach. Each February and October, CAMO orchestrates an all-star team of American medical, dental and other service professionals who choose to use vacation time and who pay their own way to teach, train and serve people in and around Santa Rosa de Copn, Honduras.

CAMO dental brigades trekked into the rural villages of La Mohaga, Belen Gualcho, Ocotepeque and San Miguelito, Intibuca, there treating over 300 people. Working alongside their Honduran counterparts, volunteer plastic surgeons reconstructed ears and hands and corrected cleft lips, palates and facial scars – a total of 24 surgeries.

American volunteer nutritionists taught 20 Honduran nurses to help recognize sick patients who are in a state of malnutrition. CAMO’s leadership development program trained Honduran women on confidence, building trust, coaching and motivating others, giving effective feedback and work/life balance.

CAMO’s literacy program distributed hundreds of Spanish children’s books to rural villages. And most significantly, CAMO last week implemented the first non-invasive hemoglobin program in Central America.

– Originally published in The Daily Record