Education for 500 children in Guatemala

I hope all is well with you. Classes have got off to a great start for our one hundred scholarship students in secondary school and college and our four hundred primary school students, many of whom have varying disabilities, with their classroom materials. 

We continue to hand out the classroom material scholarships as more and more families are identified with needs and the government resources supplied in January run out.

All the families we support with scholarships and educational materials live in extreme poverty. Most have no electricity or running water and zero protection from the elements. With the mid-year rainy seasons becoming more unpredictable and intense this can cause many houses to be washed away leaving the families with nothing.

Our project manager Gaspar, who is Tz’utujil Maya, has spent the last few months visiting the surrounding communities to talk with families and find out more about their current situation. This was followed by meetings in the schools to talk about parental and student responsibilities concerning education and getting them signed up with our scholarship programme.

A really exciting opportunity for the projects starts today (Tuesday 17th March) with GlobalGiving matching all donations up to $50 (£38) by 50% from 10am EDT until 10pm EDT on Friday 20th March whilst funds last and we want to take this opportunity to achieve something specific together. Please be aware that the matching funds do run out quite quickly so please donate today or early tomorrow to take full advantage. Also, the matching only applies once per individual donor.

We hope to raise $4,500 (£3,600) over the next few days which will cover the next installments of scholarships for fifty secondary school students and fifty college students and classroom materials for four hundred children. 

For example we can reach that target over the next four days with three hundred donations of $10 plus the $5 matching = $15 or £8 +£4 matching + £2 Gift Aid for UK taxpayers. Obviously if you can donate more, even better.

Thank you so much for anything you can donate today as we aim to reach our target and we'll keep you posted on how the school is coming along in the next couple of months.

Cheers