Transitions Foundation of Guatemala

La vida de Lisa Gabriela comenzó ominosamente el 3 de mayo de 2007.

Not only did she have the hard luck of being born into one of the countless impoverished families in Guatemala's poverty-stricken rural countryside, but at birth she weighed in at only one pound and 14 ounces - a near-certain death sentence for a child without first-world medical care.

No sólo tuvo la mala suerte de nacer en una de las innumerables familias pobres en la pobreza asolado por la zona rural de Guatemala, pero al nacer pesaba en tan sólo una libra y 14 onzas - una sentencia de muerte casi segura para una niña sin la atención médica del primer mundo.

Somehow, she survived. After months in the hospital, Lisa was sent to a village in Tecpán to live at her grandparents' one-room home, which more closely resembles a glorified cardboard box, that, along with Lisa and her grandparents, houses her parents and two older siblings.

Pero, ella sobrevivió. Después de meses en el hospital, Lisa fue enviado a un pueblo de Tecpán para vivir en la casa de sus abuelos.

Life remained a struggle. She did not respond to sound and could barely move at four months old. Her father, a cook earning several dollars a day, could not afford to adequately feed the family - meaning Lisa received only breast milk even while she aged.

La vida seguía siendo una lucha. Ella no respondió al sonido y apenas podía moverse a los cuatro meses de edad. Su padre, un cocinero que gana varios dólares al día, no podía permitirse el lujo de alimentar adecuadamente a la familia - es decir, Lisa recibió sólo leche materna.

Transitions Foundation's teacher Edson Lopez and class volunteer Marty Smith took the special education class in San Antonio on a field trip to the swimming pool on March 25th.

Family members of the students were also invited, and the community pool covered the cost for the majority of the students to enter.

For most of the of the students that attended, it was the first time that they had been swimming in their lives.

Transitions Foundation's members of the back-to-back Central American champion Guatemala national wheelchair basketball team made the journey to Guatemala City March 12 to put on an intrasquad exhibition basketball game for an audience of students, and then spoke to the crowd about our mission to improve the lives of the disabled in Guatemala.

"It was a great opportunity to showcase not only our skills on the basketball court, but more importantly raise social awareness about Transitions Foundation and how we are helping those in need," said Alex Gálvez, executive director at Transitions Foundation and member of the Guatemalan national team.

After the team put on a display on the court in a game that ended in a 7-7 tie, the audience was shown a video clip of Transitions Foundation being featured on CNN Español. Members of Transitions also delivered speeches on how to help the disabled.

Life is never easy for someone that suffers from Osteogenesis imperfecta, a disease more commonly referred to as brittle bone disease.

That was especially true for 22-year old Gonzalo Gonzales, who arrived from his rural village to Transitions Foundation 12 years ago tied into a small wooden chair strapped to his father's back like a sack of vegetables.

After suffering a series of broken bones, he needed crutches and eventually a wheelchair, all of which he received from Transitions.