Change a Life, Educate a Child

Today I’m happy to share the story of a 5-week Scheel Center volunteer, Carmen, and to alert you to a special opportunity to support our students: Global Giving is offering a match of 30 percent for all donations received on March 16th, 2011. They will also award a cash prize for the project receiving the most donations.

Carmen is a 19-year-old volunteer at the Scheel Center. She is studying in a local Spanish language school and dedicates several days a week to service at Scheel. Carmen wanted to become involved in the daily lives of Guatemalans, and most importantly, to work in a project that needed her.

During the morning hours, Carmen is an aid to Teacher Marcela, who heads the Scheel Center’s combined second and third grade class. Carmen corrects homework assignments, teaches German vocabulary, and once she gave a lesson all about volcanoes. According to Carmen, Guatemala classrooms are a bit more challenging to teach in than classrooms in Switzerland. But, she loves the experience, and embraces the spontaneity required to keep the students’ attention.

Carmen supports the Scheel Center in other areas, too. On Tuesday afternoons, she babysits a group of 15 kids, aged 2 to 10, while their mothers attend Mothers Club meetings. Carmen has facilitated games, painting, paper-hat making, and the creation of musical instruments with recycled materials. Carmen also takes a kitchen duty shift once a week, assisting Doña Edna and Doña Ana by washing dishes and preparing lunches for 153 students.

Carmen’s willingness to chip in fits perfectly with the Scheel Center philosophy. Scheel Center students, too, are encouraged to serve and improve their communities. They dished out hot meals to displaced families when their school became a shelter in the aftermath of May 2010’s Tropical Storm Agatha. They volunteer regularly at The GOD’S CHILD Project’s Casa Jackson, and help with the Project’s newsletter mailing each month.

This month, feel proud: Proud of Scheel Center students and dedicated volunteers, and proud that your contribution is helping us continue our mission. We encourage you to visit our website for more information on volunteering with us in Guatemala. We also urge you to make a gift on March 16. Lots of bright futures are depending on it!

Links:

• The GOD'S CHILD Project
• The Scheel International Technical Training Center

The Scheel International Technical Training Center opened for the 2011 school year last Monday. 145 students from Jocotenango and surrounding communities arrived in fresh uniforms, buzzing with the anticipation of starting classes and making new friends. Faces new and old fill the classrooms:

New faces like Maria’s.

Fifteen-year-old Maria started the first grade last week. A year ago, Maria was working with her mother and siblings at the local landfill, sorting through trash to sell to recycling companies. This year, with the help of a GOD’S CHILD Project social worker, Maria enrolled as a student at the Scheel Center. Donors like you gave her a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to leave the dump and start a brand new chapter in life. She now has a future and has dreams to reach for.

Old faces like Juan’s.

At first glance, Juan looks like someone who has had a rough life. If you decide to stop and chat, Juan is kind, polite, and intent on sharing not a sob story, but the goals he hopes to reach through education. His dream in life is “to help people who don’t have an education, who don’t have a home, who are sick, who are poor, who don’t have a lot, who just need help in general.” This tough-looking kid stands out as one of the smartest and hardest-working students at the Scheel Center, and we are all hoping that he will accomplish all that he dares to dream.

With the first couple days of school come really important lessons: how to wash hands, how to brush teeth, how to enter the classroom, why it’s good to keep quiet when teachers are speaking. Very soon, these bright and eager learners will be ready to tackle math and reading, woodworking, gardening, and volunteer-led English lessons. With your help, these kids—really good kids from really bad neighborhoods—will continue to flourish.

Continue your support.

We hope you will continue to support The GOD’S CHILD Project as this school year progresses. We´re off to a good start, but we still need your help to keep these kids in school. We are offering them a hope-filled future through long term education, and the competition is offering them drugs and fellowship through gang involvement. Please donate today and pass this link along to friends and families so that they too can get involved.

Links:

• Learn more about Scheel on our website
• See what The GOD'S CHILD Project is up to this month