In October 2024, after the medical trip to Santa Marta, Colombia, 8 team members did a four-day trek to The Lost City. The Lost City or “Ciudad Perdida” is the archaeological site of an ancient city in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, which is believed to have been founded about 800 AD. It was discovered in 1972 and is only accessible by trekking through the jungle. On day two of their hike, the guide showed the team members a school for local indigenous children, but it was a Sunday, and the school was not in session. On the way back to Santa Marta, the team stopped again at the school on a Tuesday when the children were there and met Natalia Feria, a teacher at the school. Dr. Eddie Castillo asked Natalia what would be the number one thing that the school needs and she said, “solar panels”. The school receives help from the government with the School Food Plan (PAE). Food gets shipped every 15 days and they supplement it with food they grow, such as plantain, yuca, malanga, and other tubers. The weather is hot and humid, and food perishes quickly without refrigeration, leaving nothing for the children to eat except rice and grains. Animal products and vegetables just don’t last. They have no electrical power, making conventional refrigerators and coolers useless. The only solution in this remote setting is the use of solar powered refrigerators and freezers. These refrigerators would allow them to store food for longer periods and feed the children breakfast and lunch. As Natalia said, “We want to properly feed these children and if possible, eliminate hunger.”

In 2025, Healing the Children Northeast raised $10,000 USD for The Lost City Elementary School Fund, which provided for solar panels for the school. With the help of UNIMA (our in-country hosts in Santa Marta, Colombia, where we send medical teams twice a year) they coordinated the logistics to get the equipment, tech support, delivery, and installation of the solar panels to the community, which was done by a team of donkeys. Healing the Children Northeast and the Santa Marta team are pleased to be able to fight hunger by providing solar electricity and refrigeration to this school for indigenous children.

Natalia Feria, a teacher at the school, provided a write up on the need in this community: “The Lost City Elementary School ‘AMOR’ was built as a donation from a Swedish family. It found its origin from the vulnerabilities that exist in the indigenous communities that inhabit the path of The Lost City in the Sierra Nevada of Santa Marta, Colombia. Although these communities are entirely autonomous, when confronted with civilization they had the need to assert their rights before civilians and the state to protect their existence. It is for that main purpose as to why the school exists today. The native communities need to read, write and be represented in government to preserve their culture and autonomy. Of the native peoples, the most represented are the Arhuacos, Wiwa and Kogui cultures. Most kids at the school are Kogui’s, the remaining are Wiwa’s who live closer to the school. These communities are governed by the law of origin which is to go at the pace of nature, its processes, and cycles. In these communities, education consists of preserving their way of life by preserving their land, autonomy, and roots. This is taught at home by parents and elders. At the AMOR school, we have our own education model. The goal is to comply with all the legal requirements set by the Ministry of Education and at the same time imprinting a very valuable cultural seal. For example, in addition to cultural curriculum, we teach weaving, sawing, planting and mother tongue classes. We constantly seek the advice, support, and wisdom from the native elders in the community who visit the school. As for myself, an attorney from Bogota, when I first came to this community as a tourist in January of 2022, little did I know that I would be fulfilling my life mission here which is to help. God led me here to this marvelous place with so many beautiful children. My role as an educator is to help them preserve their culture and autonomy. History has seen many civilizations perish due to disease, malnutrition, and ignorance. That is why I could not leave. No one can think and create if they are hungry. Thanks to our persistence, today we have 65 students from different parts of the mountain. As we grow, our goal is to expand by opening a Kindergarten. We project a growth to over 80 children within the year.”

Written by Asheema Pruthi, MD, Resident Physician at Eastern Virginia Medical School

From May 20^th to 25^th, 2024, I was fortunate enough to join the Healing the Children team on a humanitarian trip to Mwanza, Tanzania. The surgeons on the trip were Dr. William Dougherty, Dr. Dane Barrett, and Dr. Jim Ross.  This is Healing the Children’s second mission to Mwanza, and we returned to Buganda Medical Center. Our visiting team consisted of nurses, speech language pathologists, pediatricians, anesthesiologists, surgeons, and resident surgeons. We partnered with local surgeons, anesthesiology providers, medical students, nurses, and speech language pathologists. We held educational conferences throughout the week in addition to hands-on teaching with surgeons, anesthesiologists, and nurses. There was an incredible collaboration between the local team and our visiting team.

During our busy week, we visited with over 55 patients and performed over 30 procedures. The majority of our operations were cleft lip and palate revisions for malpositioned, hypertrophic scars or nasoalveolar fistulas. Many of these patients had existing speech and swallow challenges that prompted our revision surgery. We were fortunate to have two American speech therapists join our team. During the week, our speech pathologists, Lindsey and Ysabella, worked closely with the local speech therapist, Adam. They hosted over 60 counseling sessions, working closely with patients pre-operatively and post-operatively.

Although our trip primarily focused on management of cleft lip and palate patients, our team did a wide range of ENT and facial plastic surgeries including thyroidectomies, sinus surgery, scar revisions, and microtia repairs. During our mission, I assisted Dr. Dougherty in a complete auricular reconstruction. Our patient, Grace, suffered a traumatic auricular amputation during an assault. Grace was initially evaluated on the last mission trip in August. Last August, a surgical plan was discussed and she eagerly awaited our return for surgery- she was reportedly calling the local clinic twice a week for an update on our pending visit. Grace received the 5-hour surgery and recovered exceptionally well.

Throughout the week, I was continuously amazed at the immense appreciation from the patients, staff, and local team. Although it was not easy to communicate with our patients due to the language barrier, their appreciation and gratitude was palpable. Many surgical trainees traveled multiple hours to learn and collaborate with our team this week. The residents and fellows were hospitable, always assisting with obtaining necessary supplies and guiding us around the hospital to visit the in-patients. We were amazed at the number of observers joining each of our procedures, each with immense eagerness to learn from our team.  

I am currently a PGY-3 otolaryngology resident at Eastern Virginia Medical School.  This was my first medical humanitarian trip, and will definitely not be my last. I feel very fortunate to have had the opportunity to collaborate and operate with local surgeons in the management of challenging patients. The new friendships I made with local trainees and surgeons in and out of the operating room is something I will never forget.