Mano a Mano Aviation: Providing Weekend Health Clinics in Rural Bolivia Almost Every Weekend

Mano a Mano’s counterpart organization Mano a Mano Aviation has provided emergency rescue of ill and injured individuals, transporting them to urban hospitals for life-saving treatment; and weekend clinics for which we transport volunteer health care professionals into remote areas to provide primary medical & dental care, for nearly 2 decades. Having an aviation program also allows Mano a Mano to transport cargo and people in support of these goals and our other programs.

Why Weekend Health Clinics?

In isolated rural communities in Bolivia, the nearest health care provider can be hours or even days away. With a plane, it might take an hour or 2 to transport volunteer medical professionals from Cochabamba to the community, so that they can provide medical, dental, and physical therapy care for hundreds of local residents over the course of a weekend. It would take 10+ hours each way by ground transport; with a plane it becomes a viable option to connect medical professionals to volunteer with communities that are interested in hosting a Mano a Mano jornada.

It takes about an hour to fly from Cochabamba to San Francisco de Moxos (where we provided a jornada in May 2024); by car it would take about 23 hours each way, and is not possible outside of the dry season due to many roads being flooded (Google can’t compute!). This is the basis for Mano a Mano Aviation’s program: in emergencies we can provide rapid transport to care in an hour or 2 rather than 10-20+ hours; for weekend health clinics medical professionals from the city can spend almost all of a weekend providing volunteer healthcare in rural communities with only an ~hour commute, rather than just driving back and forth the entire time.

Mano a Mano has been providing weekend health clinics (jornadas) almost every weekend. Below are a few jornadas from the past few months:

Jornada in San José – May 1-2, 2025

Mano a Mano typically travels to San José twice per year to provide weekend health/dental services. The nearest clinic available is 8 hours by boat.

Jornada in Totora (Beni) – May 3-4, 2025

After wrapping up the jornada in San Jose on May 1-2, the same group of Mano a Mano volunteers traveled to Totora, a small community with no nearby health center. Mano a Mano set up shop for the 2-day jornada in the local school.