Education Guatemala Project #6822

Change a Life, Educate a Child

by The GOD'S CHILD Project

Project Report | Mar 28, 2023
Leave No One Behind: Inclusion through Education

By Robbie Middleton | Padrinos & Becas Department

At Asociación Nuestros Ahijados we work hard to ensure that we provide comprehensive support to affiliated families. This year our objective is to expand our programs through strategies and actions that guarantee inclusion and decent living conditions for families living in extreme poverty.

Julieta* was born with Down syndrome and was diagnosed with a congenital heart condition known as Patent Foramen Ovale defect. She has also been diagnosed with a neoplasm on her side that could become a cancerous tumour if it does not receive immediate attention, and difficulty in her hip that prevents her from crawling properly and walking. Julieta and her mother arrived at the Project to request support from our Scholarship and Sponsorship programme in October 2022. Through our services, she will be receiving specialized medical attention.

Julieta had a number of exams and appointments planned for the end of last year, with the costs to be covered by us, but she had an accident in the home that put these on hold. Whilst Julieta was at home being looked after by her older brothers, she pulled on a cloth that knocked over a pot of boiling water and gave her second-degree burns on her neck and chest, covering the area where her tests were going to take place. Now she needs different types of non-invasive exams instead.

While we continue to support Julieta and her family with medical costs, exams and medicine, we are also interested in providing her with an education. This year, she turned 6 and so is at an age where she should be attending school. Julieta can’t attend mainstream school, however, as she has Down Syndrome and is not developmentally at a level equal to her peers. Because of this, our Padrinos and Education programmes collaborated to come up with an education plan for Julieta so that she can begin to have access to an education. This plan is tailored specifically to her needs with the aim of helping her to be ready in the future to potentially join mainstream schools.

Despite being unable to walk or talk, Julieta is able to understand when talked to and has her own sign language to communicate her needs. She particularly uses signs to convey when she is hungry or when she has strong emotions like happiness or annoyance. One facet of our plan of action is to encourage Julieta to expand her communication and to start to speak. We also hope to have Julieta work with our physical therapist to encourage her to walk. This will give her more independence and will mean that her mother no longer needs to carry her everywhere.

On top of providing educative help to Julieta, we are helping the whole family as our education sessions allow Julieta’s mother some free time in which she can work without worrying about leaving her at home where she may have another accident. This provides peace of mind for Julieta’s mother as well as another income for the family.

At Asociación Nuestros Ahijados and The GOD'S CHILD Projectour mission is to reduce the gaps of extreme poverty in vulnerable and excluded populations, to guarantee equal development opportunities through programmes in food and nutritional security, to support families through secondary, technical, and vocational education, health, child nutritional recovery, volunteering and Service teams, housing, economic and social empowerment of women and their families. We also fight human trafficking through long-term solutions to the causes in Guatemala, India and the United States. Nuestros Ahijados is an affiliate of the organization THE GOD'S CHILD Project (GCP).

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Sep 30, 2022
The Ongoing Support for Our Former Students

By Robbie Middleton | Padrinos Department

Many children have passed and continue to pass through the doors of our Vista Hermosa Center. Whilst the education for some of these children ends after they leave the Vista Hermosa Center, the care and support of Nuestros Ahijados and The GOD’S CHILD Project does not necessarily. Many of the children remain in our sponsorship or scholarship programmes or join our Club de Madres and Club de Padres. Often former students will come to us years later when they are in need of support, something that we are always ready to provide.

Some, like Leidy and Natalia, require further support from us many years after finishing their studies. Both required the help of Casa Jackson, our Malnutrition Recuperation Centre, for their children after they were identified as being malnourished. Leidy’s sons, Jesus and Angel, arrived at Casa Jackson in late November 2019 whilst Natalia’s daughter, Avril, arrived in March of 2022. Jesus and Angel were both severely malnourished whilst Avril was at a moderate level of malnutrition. All, however, needed our support and care.

Jesus and Angel along with Leidy spent almost two months at Casa Jackson whilst Avril and Natalia spent just over four months recovering. Whilst their children were getting better, both Leidy and Natalia spent time with our psychologist and in Club de Madres, learning important skills and life lessons for the future. The children and their mothers left Casa Jackson happier and more confident for their future.

For both our former students and their children, however, the duty of care did not end after they left Casa Jackson. Nuestros Ahijados has continued to support the families. Jesus and Angel joined our Dreamer Center School in 2020, receiving an education from us just like their mother. After the pandemic closed our school they joined our scholarship programme and we continue to support their education. Both children are doing well in school and are on track to pass their grades this year. We have been supporting the family in other ways also, and this month we gave the children a new bunk bed so that both boys would have their own space to sleep in rather than having to share a small bed.

Natalia and Avril also continue to receive support from us. One of the reasons that Natalia stayed for so long in Casa Jackson was because we were looking to help her with her future after leaving. Natalia made the brave decision to leave the house she was living in and to move out on her own with her daughter. We have helped her find a place to stay as well as a job so that she can support her daughter independently.

The GOD’S CHILD Project has been working for 30 years to break the chains of poverty through education, housing, nutrition and healthcare. Please click the link below to donate to support us in our ongoing mission.

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Jun 3, 2022
Canal Sonador

By Robbie Middleton | Padrinos Department

This past year Nuestros Ahijados and The GOD’S CHILD Project have been looking into ways we can support our children with their education whilst the schools in Guatemala remain closed through governmental decree. We wanted to create long-term solutions to provide for any outcome that may occur, looking into ways that we could help our children not only to catch up what they had missed out over the past two years but also to allow them to flourish moving forward.

One of the solutions we found was the creation of our new Canal Soñador (The Dreamer Channel). Canal Soñador is a new project which aims to educate children all over Guatemala in a fun, innovative form whilst making sure that it keeps to the Guatemalan National Curriculum.

Our three teachers will work alongside our videographer to create educational videos to teach all aspects of the Guatemalan National Curriculum to our children in the Project as well as making it freely available for any child in Guatemala who has the need for extra support or lessons taught in a fun and interesting way.

The project is currently in its first phase of development, starting with our technical team who have begun to film classes. For this our teachers began planning out the lessons, finding or creating props and costumes and designing a film set.

The filming is done in a professional setting with an audio-visual team who are currently in the process of editing all the videos to make them dynamic and modern.

The objective is to create a platform where children and youths can have access to the content, watch it live or catch up whenever they are able to work. We aim to create a virtual library of different classes for different subjects and age ranges. The videos will be uploaded into an open-access cloud so that anyone can benefit from them, regardless of whether they are part of our Project or not.

In the future we hope to have an intranet so that children can message with doubts, comments or simply to interact with teachers to be able to complete their work. We are extremely excited about the work that has already been done and the potential that this project can have. We believe that we will be at the forefront of Guatemalan education post-COVID.

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