Education for 400 children in Guatemala

I hope all is well with you. The Covid-19 pandemic continues to cause major problems in Latin America though the rollout of national vaccination programmes are giving some hope for the future “new normal”, albeit slowly. Online teaching is not an option due to lack of internet and devices. Some staggered classroom teaching, with all the protocols in place, has been possible though normal classroom-based teaching for all is still months away.

This week’s Little By Little bonus donation campaign gives us a brilliant opportunity to build a foundation to work from as we look ahead to the final months of 2021 and into 2022. GlobalGiving will match each donation up to $50 by 50% from Monday 13^th to Friday 17^th September. It would be fantastic once again to rely on your support this week with whatever you are able to donate to this page.

Restrictions due to Covid-19 have forced the cancellation of usual fundraising events including our charity challenges over the past nineteen months and the economic outlook remains uncertain.

Whilst the main priority is obviously keeping our current scholarships and the education of the children, once more funding becomes available we want to increase the number of local teachers, undertake maintenance, restock the classrooms and invest in more family sustainable income plans for the future which is even more critical during these times. The sustainable plans will provide extra income for the families to buy essential food and medicines as well as helping to fund the schools in the future. The sustainable plans we have put in place over the past several years in Guatemala now provide the opportunity for hundreds of students to continue their studies as well as their siblings.

We will also be planting a tree for every $10 raised during this week to help reduce the carbon footprint of the day-to-day activities of the projects. These include boat travel for the students in Guatemala, pickup transport for the students in Honduras and teachers’ transport up into the mountains in Ecuador and desert in Perú.

Our fifty secondary school and college scholarship students are coming up to their final exams which has been a tremendous effort by them bearing in mind they have had to travel into the main school each week from the six communities where they all live around Lake Atitlán to receive worksheets and drop off homework for marking for the whole year. Those students who are graduating will celebrate by planting trees in the surrounding hills. We are hoping to add more scholarship students for both secondary school and college in 2022.

The sewing project continues to be a great success for the single mothers and parents of the scholarship students as well as some of the elderly population eager to learn new skills. The extra income they have been able to earn through the project has been crucial during these times. Like the scholarships, we plan to increase the number of sewing machines in 2022.

We will use all funds raised this week during the Little By Little Campaign to go towards our secondary school and college scholarship programme and further training and materials in the sewing project. Depending on available funds we will aim to add sewing machines too!

Many thanks for anything you can donate this week to the Little By Little Campaign. It is such a fantastic opportunity for us to be able to get back on track after these past eighteen months and build a solid platform for the years ahead.

Also, if you are thinking of doing something different in 2022 please do follow the link in this report to our Charity Challenges in Perú and Ecuador in May and June taking in the Inca Trail and Machu Picchu in Perú and volcanos in Ecuador – you can do either or both!

Have a great month and thank you all once again.

Cheers

Links:

• Charity Challenges Peru and Ecuador 2022