By Kathy McCarty
Staff Writer
FORT FAIRFIELD, Maine — In addition to keeping the community safe, Fort’s Police Chief Bill Campbell finds ways to help communities in far-off places, recently telling Fort Fairfield Rotarians details of a trip he and fellow members of the Wesleyan Church in Presque Isle took to Central America to aid a poverty stricken region. The humanitarian trip took participants to Guatemala, with church members offering faith-based and civic organizational efforts to help poverty-stricken villages in that country.
“The village infrastructure is major problem which is surpassed only by children’s issues which include homelessness, minimal or nonexistent health and dental care, no educational facilities and instruction, with even the most basic nutritional necessities lacking,” said Campbell.
With shelter, basic nutritional needs and instruction missing each day, Campbell said many children “enter into a downward-spiraling lifestyle that ignores health and dental care, educational instruction and the like.”
“They drop out of school well before high school to perform self- or family-supporting work,” he said.
Campbell said the lack of village infrastructure simply exacerbates these issues, as often no clean water is available for bathing, washing clothes or even brushing one’s teeth. The infrastructures of these communities lack even the most basic of necessities – adequate plumbing facilities.
“The lack of basic toilet facilities brings along with it the many illnesses and complications that might be imagined,” Campbell said.
On his recent trip, Campbell traveled with the church group, working with an in-country Rotarian, assisting with various projects in multiple villages. While in the region, Campbell indicated he saw previously completed project signs that stated the project was completed by a Rotary Club from the United States.
Anyone interested in supporting or participating in future Guatemalan humanitarian efforts can call Campbell for additional information at 472-3808.
