Ninos de Guatemala (NDG) provides over 500 children from low income families with access to the quality education they deserve. Operating 3 schools, NDG partners with families and the community to help children gain "skills for success" that will serve them in both education and life. NDG strives to be self-sustainable due to its Child Sponsorship Program and its two social business initiatives: a Spanish school and a tour operator based in Antigua, Guatemala.
Families that live in extreme poverty often see school as an impossible cost. Even public school carries costs, including books, uniforms, and transportation. Because parents have not experienced the increases in earnings, quality of life, and personal dignity that come from education, they don't know what they are missing by pulling a child out of school to work instead. This is why it's a cycle: children who grow up without education are less likely to send their own children to school.
By offering a quality education, NDG makes it easier for families to decide to send their children to school. Our well-trained teachers, free nutritious snacks, extracurricular opportunities and practical curriculum give families more value when they enroll their children. Also, NDG's social workers teach families about the value of education and allow them to experience it themselves through our Parents School. This helps maintain student retention rates and engage the community simultaneously.
By providing a generation of Guatemalans with a quality education, NDG replaces a vicious cycle with a virtuous one. Instead of poverty sowing the seeds for still more poverty, education today will create an environment that leads to opportunities and education for successive generations as well. Instead of leaving school to work 14-hour days in the coffee fields, children will have the chance to raise their income, engage their intellectual curiosity, and live in a more stable society.
This project has provided additional documentation in a PDF file (projdoc.pdf).
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