Guatemala

The Guatemalan charity, Asociación Nuestros Ahijados (ANA), was founded in 1991 by GOD’S CHILD Project founder Patrick Atkinson.

Between 1983 and 1989, Mr. Atkinson worked war-zone reconciliation and post-war reconstruction across Guatemala and the rest of Central America; a period marked by intense civil violence and war across the region.

In 1989, Mr. Atkinson departed Central America to investigate human trafficking in Southeast Asia in 1989. In his absence, many of the Guatemalan war-orphans he had rescued and raised during the 1980’s were once again alone with many living alone on the streets.

Mr. Atkinson left his position in Southeast Asia and returned to Guatemala in 1991 to start La Asociación Nuestros Ahijados (ANA) to care for and educate these now-teenagers once again.

ANA has since grown from its humble beginnings in a borrowed farmhouse to serving thousands of orphaned and impoverished children, and widowed, abandoned, and single mothers and their dependents, across Guatemala.

ANA’s care, programs, and facilities focus on providing quality health, education, economic and social empowerment, and sustainable development programs. Over the years, ANA has raised more than 80,000 children into positive, professional adulthood, family life, and community participation.

The world-renowned Casa Jackson Hospital for Malnourished Children is one of ANA’s largest programs. Founded as a small GOD’S CHILD Project group home in 2008, Casa Jackson has since grown to become Central America’s foremost beacon of hope in the battle against starvation.

Casa Jackson is staffed by a professional medical and residential child-care team, including several volunteers. It provides inpatient recuperation and future-learning care to malnourished children and their mothers, serves special dietary meals, offers physical therapy for children with special malnutrition-caused needs, and, in the process, saves the lives of severely malnourished children.