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LIGHT AND LITERACY FOR A MAYAN VILLAGE IN GUATEMALA

Let’s Leave No Girl Behind - our club’s signature project

Project Goals (Initial Effort)

  • Provide a six-month course in basic Spanish - speaking, reading, and writing - for 14 indigenous Mam teenage girls and women in the village of Nuevo San Ildefonso. Upon successful completion, their ten families would receive solar power units for their homes.
  • Purchase, transport, and install 10 solar power units for families in Nuevo San Ildefonso.
  • Provide half an annual scholarship for an indigenous girl who would communicate with the club via letters and photographs.

All three goals have been successfully achieved.

Positive Outcomes (“the good...”)

spanish teacher

All participants are now speaking, reading, and writing in basic Spanish. This important goal was achieved via the training they received from a traveling language teacher assigned by Adopt-a-Village. The training was expanded from the original one half-day session per week to two. The additional costs incurred for doubling the training were underwritten by Adopt-a-Village.

Solar power units were delivered to Nuevo San Ildefonso, and installation began on August 24.

solar

Although the costs of the units had increased by 20 percent since the original estimate had been provided, club member Osman Casteneda negotiated a goodwill discount with the vendor – the goals of the project made the difference.

 

Our club’s first scholarship recipient is Isabel Ramirez. Isabel has successfully completed her classes throughout the school IsabelAug2017year and has excelled in her exam results. She will graduate from the Adopt-a-Village Middle School in six weeks’ time.  (Adopt-a-Village hopes to find a sponsor who will provide her with a high school scholarship, allowing her to begin classes at Maya Jaguar in the new school year beginning January, 2018.)

An exciting and unexpected sequel has grown out of this project. Two of the program’s unmarried young women, having gained newfound confidence through the training, have applied for scholarships to attend the Maya Jaguar Middle School in the coming school year.*

Negative Outcome (“…the bad and the ugly.”)

The second outcome is a disturbing one, and was discovered during the project period. The Spanish teacher hired for the project was puzzled that that the young women in his group were illiterate in Spanish. According to village parents, the government school teacher had spent nine years in the village without teaching the children these basic language skills, or even basic arithmetic. He was able to produce false records that gave the students passing grades, assigning them to the next grade each year. 

When the girls selected for our club project began classes, it was discovered that they were unable to speak, read or write in Spanish. It was this situation that necessitated additional language sessions.

Complaints have been filed with the government, but corruption and indifference to the plight of indigenous peoples do not instill confidence that the government will make changes.

The Bottom Line

The initial effort of this ongoing project has surpassed its goals.  It directly created the opportunity for two young women to receive scholarships and attend classes at the Maya Jaguar Middle School. It has created the possibility that the government might replace the current corrupt teacher with competent one. 

It has given all hope that literacy and learning will finally begin in this small village.

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* Of the 14 girls and women who attended the classes, only six are single and thereby eligible to continue their studies. The other four single girls were unable to apply due to their parents’ extreme poverty and their need to have the girls work. Due to a lack of work, families have been forced to borrow money in order to purchase food. In reports throughout the nation, it has been reported that some people are selling their possessions in order to buy food. Guatemala has the highest rate of chronic child malnutrition in Latin America and the Caribbean, and fourth highest in the world.


Club fundraising efforts continue to contribute further to these efforts!

This project has been funded by eClub Member donations and fundraisers. Would you like to help financially?
Thank you for your interest and generosity!