Stakeholders’ perspectives on a pilot project focusing on improving access to primary healthcare for adults with disability in Santiago Atitlán, Guatemala

Goli Hashemi is an occupational therapist (OT) with over 20 years of clinical expertise working with adults with various impairments. She has worked with people of all abilities in Canada, US, Cameroon and Cambodia as an OT practitioner and as a researcher in Canada, Malawi, Vietnam, Cameroon and Guatemala. Goli is a faculty member at the Department of Occupational Therapy at Samuel Merritt University, in Oakland California and a PhD Candidate at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, in London, UK. Her research focuses on access to primary healthcare services for people with disabilities in low- and middle-income countries. 

Mary Wickenden is medical/social anthropologist at the Institute of Development Studies, UK. She leads the disability research team there, focusing on the experiences and perceptions of children and adults with disabilities and their families. She uses mainly inclusive, participatory, qualitative methods to explore a broad range of aspects of disabled people’s lives including: inclusive health and education, community based inclusive development, gender, sexuality and intersectionality, and working with peer researchers with disabilities.

Ana Leticia Santos is a translator and interpreter based in Guatemala City. She has been a sworn translator since 2006, and obtained her Master’s degree in Translation in 2023. During these years, she has worked closely with the community, working in the areas of food security, education, sanitation, residential care, and disabilities. Such experiences raised her consciousness and had an impact on advocating for marginalized populations.

Shaffa Hameed is an Assistant Professor at the International Centre for Evidence in Disability (ICED) at LSHTM. Prior to joining ICED in 2016, she undertook a number of qualitative and policy research commissioned by international and local NGOs in the Maldives, contributing to regional and local understanding of social and religious barriers to reproductive health. Her work at the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) focused on evaluating programmes and research on sexual and reproductive health and rights and gender-based violence, with emphasis on strengthening institutional response to these. The common thread throughout her research career has been sexual and reproductive health and rights of vulnerable groups, based on which she completed her doctorate at the London School of Economics and Political Science in 2012.