Volunteers Encounter Impact of HOPE Programs

Project HOPE is committed to providing long-term sustainable health care solutions to people in need around the globe. While in Costa Rica, HOPE volunteers were able to experience the impact of a HOPE health education program that was presented in the county 30 years earlier.

In the early 1980’s Project HOPE came to San Jose, Costa Rica to train people who were interested in becoming Paramedics. A young Red Cross worker named Jose Guillen was one of them.

Today he is Major Jose Guillen, Regional Commander of Police and Paramedic’s here in Limon. He told me he was able to enroll in the program through the University of Costa Rica and spent a year training as a paramedic and later traveled to Colombia and Venezuela to train paramedics there in search and rescue procedures they had developed in Costa Rica for natural disasters.

Almost 30 years later he is heading up the local police support for Continuing Promise 2010 and he is very grateful to Project HOPE and the training he received.

Photos and story by Kevin Makowski, Project HOPE Public Affairs Officer

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