Programs: Regions

Core Program Regions
LMV's core program focuses on rural villages in northern Mexico (northern Sonora and Baja), El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras; and the Coachella Valley of the southwestern United States (southern California).

Core villages are listed on this page. For more information about clinic conditions, accommodations, restaurants, and other facilities in specific locales we serve, visit our villages page in our member resources section.

Mexico
In Mexico, LMV's work is focused on villages in Baja (Baja California Sur, or BCS, and Baja California Norte, or BCN) and northern Sonora (SON). Our selection of a core set of villages allows us to commit to serving those villages with an annual minimum of one dental clinic and additional other healthcare clinics, depending on village needs and LMV volunteer availability. These additional clinics usually include optometry, obstetrics and gynecology, pediatrics, and chiropractice and therapeutic massage and reflect both the absence of local services and the demand for specific specializations.

Our core villages include:

  • Fronteras & Esqueda (SON)
  • Huásabas (SON)
  • Nácori Chico (SON)
  • Villa Hidalgo (SON)
  • Guaymas (SON)
  • Bahía Asunción (BCS)
  • Bahía Tortugas & Isla Natividad (BCS)
  • San Ignacio (BCS)

When our core commitment is met, LMV also adds additional clinic trips to both core and other villages as our team availability and local demand allow. These villages include both new sites we are exploring for addition to our core set, and villages we served earlier but whose demand for services has waned with the arrival of local healthcare providers.

Additional villages include:

  • Bacadéhuachi (SON)
  • Baviácora (SON)
  • Punta Abreojos & La Bocana (BCS)
  • Ensenada (BCN)
  • Isla Cedros (BCN)


El Salvador
LMV's core clinic work in El Salvador in the past few years has focused on the following villages:

  • Zacatecoluca
  • La Playa Sunzal
  • Izalco
  • Santiago Torres
  • Los Cobanos
  • El Espino
  • Usulatan
  • San Salvador (various outlying areas)

The clinics LMV conducted in San Salvador were in outlying areas, including the Chattarrera, a combination refugee camp and housing development, and La Espina. Additionally, LMV's Wheelchair Program, one of our special initiatives, has distributed wheelchairs in San Salvador and other villages.


Guatemala
LMV's trips to Guatemala often pair clinics in one or two of our core villages with a week of Spanish-language training in the town of Antigua.

Our core villages include:

    • Quetzaltenango/Xela
    • Santa Cruz La Laguna, Lago de Atitlan

Honduras
Our work in Honduras is recent; in 2006 we conducted a single three-day clinic in Monjaras, which is located near Choleteca. The clinic treated 1300 patients.


United States
Since 1996, Dr. David Morgan has led LMV's Oasis Program, which treats approximately 1200 patients twice a year in Thermal, a small town near Palm Springs in the Coachella Valley in southern California. The Oasis Program differs from other LMV programs in that it is a locally coordinated program in which LMV is one of many participating organizations. Located at the Oasis School in Thermal, the Health Fair serves Oasis students and their families and other community members, many of whom originate from Mexico and some of whom are bused in from a nearby Indian reservation, and none of whom can afford healthcare otherwise.

The health fair itself offers medical, dental, and optometric clinics; signups for state medical insurance; and referrals to area practitioners; and other useful health and related services. Local sponsors donate over $200,000 worth of services for the health fair and the volunteers from LMV and other organizations, including accommodations, meals, and transportation needs. Medications, eyeglasses, healthcare equipment, and other goods are also donated.

Peru
In 2006, LMV conducted an exploratory trip to Peru and operated a one-day medical clinic in El Carmen, near Chincha. The clinic and a water infrastructure project were undertaken in partnership with Rotary International and the Rotary Club of Sonora, California, in the United States and the Rotary Clubs of Lima and Ica, Peru.