Fund a teacher and teach a class in Latin America

I hope all is well with you. It has been a great couple of months on the projects thanks to your generous donations.

In Guatemala many of our scholarship students were involved in a team-building day climbing Tolimán Volcano. These events not only allow them to see parts of the country they otherwise wouldn’t have though it also shows them what they can achieve personally and as part of a group. When not climbing volcanos they have been busy in the classroom!

As the school year finishes its first few months we continue to identify which children are at most risk of dropping out due to lack of school materials. The supplies from the government handed out at the start of the year begin to run out now, or have been lost, so it is critical to give the children the tools to continue.

Each year we plant hundreds of trees in Guatemala to offset our carbon footprint from The Phoenix Projects. This includes international flights for the charity challenges and the Impington School trip to Perú as well as daily transport taken by the local teachers.

Our scholarship students, their parents and other members of the community are all involved to ensure that the trees are cared for during the first stages of growth. From the young to the old, members of the community turned up to get involved. The elderly remember when the mountains were covered in trees and have seen first hand the extent of the deforestation in Guatemala. They are only too keen to reestablish the environment for future generations.

Our six local teachers continue giving classes in the school in Ecuador. Four of the teachers are part of our University programme where we help them with the cost of their studies in exchange for them teaching in the school. With this hands-on experience they should be able to find employment with the State once they graduate.

Mother's Day was celebrated in the school in May with lots of traditional dance, gifts and food. As is tradition the fathers do all the preparation and cooking for the mothers. This year the elderly members of the communities were invited too so they could all be involved with the activities.

Plan Moo is coming along well with purchasing of cows restarted. The current herd is growing with several previous cows into their second calving. The sales of milk are shared between the local family and helping to cover teachers’ costs. 

The land has been prepared and the seeds have been sewn in our 2½ acre (1 hectare) Plan Huerta bean crop. Leftover dried grass from the land clearing remains to protect the young shoots from the cold and the rain. Proceeds from this plan will be shared amongst the community who help out on the land and management costs of Plan Moo 

Mother’s Day was also celebrated this month in Peru with folkloric dance, gifts and food. The day is a welcome respite for the mothers whose gruelling irregular work under the sun from dawn ’til dusk in the chacras (irrigated agricultural fields) is only available for a few days during each crop cycle.

Since we started the projects in 2006 we have supplied the children with daily fruit. We also buy gas each month so they can receive a hot meal with the basic supplies the government provides. Add to this the vegetables that we now grow in the vegetable garden and we are making sure they receive nutritious food each day they are at school. We have seen remarkable positive results with their annual medical check-ups which the doctors confirm is due to the daily fruit and the vegetables.

We have installed water filters in the school so the children have access to drinking water all the time. The water in the community, which is only available for a couple of hours in the early morning each day when we fill the storage tanks, isn’t drinkable.

Each year we provide every student with their own workbooks for language comprehension and grammar (Spanish) and maths so they can follow lessons and work individually when the teacher takes another class. We only have one teacher per two grades and the academic levels of the children vary greatly as more students join the school with limited prior teaching. By having their own workbooks they can get on with set work at their own pace when the teacher is not available.

We continue to welcome the next generation of children into the school. Silvia was one of our first students graduating 6th grade in 2007. Her brother Sadán, shown here, graduated in 2016 and is about to finish secondary school.

For those of you in the UK we will be taking on the London Bridges Charity Challenge once again on Saturday 3rd August followed by a reunion in a pub. We plan to walk the fifteen bridges and 12 miles (20km) from Tower Bridge to Putney Bridge where we will have a Phoenix reunion in a pub there. 

As we tick off the bridges we will also take on the Phoenix treasure hunt to find objects and landmarks that are associated with our work in Latin America so feel free to bring the family too. Please let us know by emailing me on dom@thephoenixprojects.org if you are interested in joining us from the start, halfway or even just for the reunion in Putney.

We still have extra spaces for the Patagonia Challenge in November so if you are interested please do let us know as we will need to know final numbers by September and for those of you with Instagram we recently started to update our account once again after a couple of years’ hiatus so please do seek us out on phoenix_flying_2020

Have a great June

Cheers

Links:

• London Bridges Charity Challenge

I hope all is well with you. It has been a great start to the year on the projects thanks to your donations to the Appeal. One hundred scholarship students started the school year in Guatemala in both secondary school and college and we handed out a further one hundred bags of necessary supplies to primary school students. Whilst the Government does supply the basics at the start of the year a more complete set is always needed which the parents cannot provide so these extra utensils give the children the best chance of a good education during 2024.

As has always been the case, education tends to be the first sacrifice when there is no money. Many days over the past two months have been spent visiting families in several villages and hamlets around the lake to find those in the most need and who are willing to continue their studies. Some students have underlying health issues which have taken precedence too though with the necessary tools they can now continue their studies.

The classroom materials are not just for the younger children entering education. They are also for older students who had dropped out of primary school due to lack of money to buy these materials. They now have the chance to continue their education, graduate primary school and enter secondary school with our scholarship programme.

We supported two community-led scheme to clean the lake’s shore around Santiago Atitlán where our scholarship students and their parents filled seventy sacks with plastic and other rubbish. This year we want to continue to emphasise the importance of team sports in the schools and our scholarship students got stuck into a football competition. Work will soon commence on school Plan Huertas to provide additional daily meals and we plan to extend our Plan Costura (sewing business) to involve more single mothers and University students.  

In Ecuador classes headed into the second half of the school year with a new printer and the house for the new family was finished with the materials for the roof purchased thanks to the Appeal. Work will begin shortly on securing a new area for a playground next to the school with a wall as well as a school vegetable garden for daily meals. 

A new sustainable Plan Huerta (vegetables) in a fifth community producing beans has started on a 2½ acre piece of land and aims to provide part-time income for several members of the community as well as income for the management of Plan Moo as the herd continues to grow.

Celebración de la Lengua Materna – Kichwa del Pueblo Otavalo (celebration of the mother tongue – Kichwa) was held in the school. In Ecuador Pawkar Raymi and Muchuk Nina were celebrated giving thanks to Pachamama (Mother Earth) for the flowering of crops and the upcoming harvests of grains. Fanesca was also prepared by the parents for Semana Santa (Easter) which is a soup made from a variety of ingredients including beans, grains, fish, eggs and many others.

The parents got together for a minga this month and the whole school was disinfected, all the windows cleaned and small paint jobs were undertaken. Preparation for the new school vegetable garden was also started with lots of earth removed and new darker earth brought in before sowing.

Finally in Perú the new school year got back underway in March with more children entering grades one and two as increased numbers of families migrate from the interior of the country (the altiplano and jungle). Once we know the total number of students we will provide each one with their own text and workbook, as we do each year. We are also installing filtered water dispensers in each classroom due to the poor quality and irregular supply.     

It goes without saying that you cannot study on an empty stomach though the vast majority of the families where we work cannot provide much more than the absolute basics at home, usually a few boiled or dried potatoes or noodles in hot water with some herbs. Some governments have become more proactive with school meals over the years by providing some supplies like rice and beans though these generally run out well before the next delivery.

We have seen the success of the Plan Huerta that we started in Perú in 2022 with Impington International College. The government sends doctors each year to check on the children’s basic health and whilst most are underweight and anemic the levels of chronic malnutrition have reduced.

Our school Plan Huertas aim to provide sufficient vegetables sustainably for the students on a daily basis with any extra used to barter for other products which cannot be grown or shared with the families to eat at home. Our larger plans, like the one we are starting in Ecuador this month, aim to provide part-time employment for members of the community throughout the year whilst generating income to cover other project costs. 

As you can see we've had a great start to the year and to help us continue our work over the next few months GlobalGiving will be matching all donations up to $50/£40 by 50% this week (Monday 8th - Friday 12th April) whilst available funds last as part of their Little By Little Campaign which is a fantastic opportunity for the projects. If you can donate anything this week to take advantage of the matching, thank you so much in advance. 

For those of you with Instagram we have started to update our account once again after a couple of years’ hiatus so please do seek us out on phoenix_flying_2020

We are nearing capacity for the Patagonia Charity Challenge (please follow the link below for details and costs) which is raising money for all the projects so if you are interested in joining us in November 2024 please do let us know by emailing info@thephoenixprojects.org 

We will also be taking on the London Bridges Charity Challenge again on Saturday 3rd August followed by a reunion in a pub. If you are interested in getting involved with the bridges or just coming to the reunion afterwards please do let us know by writing to the email shown above!  

All the best for April and thank you so much again for helping make all this happen!

Cheers

Links:

• Charity Challenges 2024