Special Report: Borderland philanthropist’s legacy continues to grow

Access to healthcare. Access to education. Access to financial support.

That’s what the Hospital de la Familia in Juarez provides for thousands of families every year.

Guadalupe “Lupita” Arispe de la Vega is the tireless philanthropist who founded Juarez’s first family planning clinic almost 40 years ago. Lupita’s vision keeps growing, and her message grows stronger.

“We have to discover what has meaning in life. We spend energy in things that aren’t important at all,” Lupita said. “I have a deep desire for equality and justice and would like to see peace and desire for equality and justice and would like to see peace in my Ciudad Juarez.

A bustling downtown Juarez matches the activity inside the Hospital de la Familia.

Nursing students eat in the cafeteria, the waiting rooms is filled with patients, and others wait for prescriptions at the pharmacy.

In all the activity, there’s serenity that comes from a mural commissioned by Guadalupe “Lupita” Arispe de la Vega.

“This is a sanctuary,” Lupita said. “Here you have all the progress of humanity at the service of man, not at the expense of man. That is our philosophy.”

Lupita believes everyone deserves quality care and an opportunity for a better life.

Lupita doesn’t like all the attention but the impact of her work speaks for her. Lupita’s goal is to continue expanding the hospital she founded and the nursing school she opened. She also wants to provide help to the mentally ill – a problem that has exploded with the drug violence.

She helped bring incubators to the nursery, the machine that tests a baby’s hearing, and there’s the state-of-the-art blood testing machine donated by Johnson and Johnson.

“All of my blood work is done here and they are perfect,” said Norma Isela Fonseca, who has been working in lab for 21 years. “Everyone working at this clinic has a vocation, a mission and mine is the laboratory. I feel fortunate working here.”

Lupita believes machines are just tools to help employees fulfill their dream of making a difference in people’s lives.

Maria de Los Angeles Rodriguez’s tools are her feet and voice. She is a promotora and 39 years ago she joined Lupita’s team to educate people in the fields and those with no access to healthcare.

“We went door to door, providing information on contraception at a time when the topic was taboo,” Rodriguez said.

FEMAP, Mexico’s federation of family planning, is fueled by 1,200 volunteers like Rodriguez.

‘FEMAP is a solidarity of successes, friends who give us wheelchairs and sheets,” Lupita said.