Silvia P.Huaynoca Q.
Director, Global Health Resources

Silvia’s medical skills and experience working with different cultures give her a growing understanding and openness to connect with people, identify needs and look for strategies to address those needs.

After graduating from medical school in Bolivia in 2006, Silvia became a medical consultant for Compassion International in La Paz. She also worked with Save the Children to develop capacity building projects for teenagers encouraging them to build productive, successful lives. Her projects, “Adolescents Building Their Life Plans” and “Making Decisions” were based on HIV/AIDS prevention among teenagers. The first project involved 300 teens from 21 villages along with their parents, community leaders, teachers, and health providers. Resources helped adolescents contribute to the development of their communities, emphasizing holistic and reproductive health, social and productive entrepreneurship and life skills. In the “Making Decisions” project, as Health Facilitator for the cities of El Alto and La Paz, Silvia worked alongside many adolescents making connections and building strong networks. She presented this program to the health authorities of both cities.

Because of the success of these projects, in April 2008 Silvia began work on the “Improving Your Lives” initiative providing key practices to improve nutrition, hygiene, and health to 34,600 children. Her project sought to create healthy habits in students, parents and caregivers, strengthening child health services, nutrition and hygiene in schools. While working for Save the Children, God strengthened her life and showed her the real needs of her people. She developed ways to work with different ages, cultures and backgrounds. Her passion for improving quality of life in a holistic perspective became stronger.

Silvia was born and raised in a Christian family. She graduated from the School of Medicine, Universidad Mayor de San Andrés in La Paz Bolivia and completed studies in Higher Education and Epidemiology. She is a master’s candidate to study Global Health at the University of Washington Graduate School of Public Health. She has been living in Seattle, Washington since December 2008. Even though all her family live in Bolivia, she feels their love and support in spite of the distance. She is greatly blessed by God and is a clear example of God’s faithfulness. Silvia strongly believes that when we let God do his will in our lives, wonderful and unimaginable things can happen.