The gentlemen on either side of Laura got little sleep last week.  Juan assists her on every trip, driving, helping pick up medical supplies, loading and unloading medical kits from the van, and chauffeuring our brigade from village to village.  He is Laura’s right hand in Mexico.  Dr. Sergio Martinez Ibarraran is from Guadalajara, but is currently doing consultations in the Health Center in San Juan de los Lagos.  He was instrumental in helping us acquire local sponorships, arranging meetings with the local officials, and assisting the villagers in selecting their Promotores.  He did all this while still doing his normal workload of caring for his patients.

A huge debt of gratitude is owed to our newest education partner, Universidad del Valle de Mexico in Zapopan and the director of the brigade, Dr. Roberto Martinez Ibarraran and his tireless team! We look forward to working with them again in the future.  Our first project with them was complete success because of their willingness to work with a small organization like Tia.

We are very proud of Rosy and her classmates!  All of them passed their demanding course.  Rosy’s lovely face shines with pride, displaying her diploma and medical kit after the graduation ceremony, which she posted on her Facebook page.  Many families will have a better quality of life because of the unselfishness and dedication of these Tia Promotores.  Thank you Rosy!!!!!!!

Our proud graduates are pictured above with our brigade members smiling in the back row.  On this important day, the grads were dressed beautifully as they received their diplomas with their friends and family looking on.  The ceremony was held in the historic Casa de la Cultura, across the main plaza from the famous Basilica.  A fantastic party followed that included a wide variety of homemade dishes, prepared by the Promotores.

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A big thank you for the hospitality, assistance and dedication to the Municipality of San Juan de los Lagos! Here you see Dr. Heriberto Alitano Gonzalez (second from the left), Dr. Sergio Martinez Ibarraran (far right) and Dr. Mayra Georgina Delgadillo Gómez (second from the right).  The people here have been incredibly kind to us and made our project here a great success!

We’d also like to to thank community leader and businessman Sr. Manuel Romo Muñoz and Margarita Márquez De la Torre who provided great support to our team during our stay here and made sure we had a nice place to lay our heads and full stomachs.

Today is graduation day! Stay tuned…