By Will Culhane | Development Manager
Exciting news from San Antonio Palopó: a re-vamped recess and a special opportunity to make your support go twice as far! Every kid deserves an education, adequate nutrition, and time to play. In San Antonio Palopó, indigenous Guatemalan children are often forced to abandon school and get their first job before the age of 11.
It’s time we let kids do what they do best: learn, eat well, play, and grow up to be change-makers for their community. But we can’t do that without you. Sign up for a recurring donation during the next seven days- the 21st through the 27th - and GlobalGiving will double the first installment!
Mayan Families Preschool Teacher Gricelda del Rosario Pérez Pérez, who grew up in San Antonio Palopó, overcame many of the same struggles that her students now face. By the time she was seven years old, Gricelda already had the responsibilities of an adult. She earned money any way she could: making and selling bracelets, working in a Coca-Cola warehouse, and using a backstrap loom to weave traje (traditional indigenous clothing). The long hours that she worked meant that she and her brother had to study late into the night. “Sometimes we didn’t sleep,” she says, “but that’s just life!”
Now a teacher at the San Antonio Preschool Nutrition Center, Gricelda has seen the school move through two temporary buildings before we acquired the land to construct our own building. Funds so far have only provided for the first floor. Though sturdy and well-made, the cramped space means the students can’t move from their seats. Gricelda explains that “they couldn’t play here even though we have toys, cars… it was difficult. We had to give them their snack in their seats for recess!”
Mayan Families knew that this arrangement was unfair to the students, depriving them of chance to learn and socialize outside the classroom. We partnered with Reviver Bridges to build the children a new playground! Now at recess every day, the children express themselves to the fullest in the outdoor play area while they wait for the money to build new classrooms.
Gricelda has high hopes for the futures of the children in her classroom: “My greatest wish is that they have professional careers, that they can become lawyers, doctors, engineers, architects, have college degrees, a car, a house with maybe two or three levels! That there will be more jobs created here in the town, and there will no longer be poverty here in San Antonio.”
Contribute to her vision of a better, brighter future for these indigenous children. And what better time to start than this week? Double your first month’s donation when you sign up for a recurring payment from now until September 27th!
By Will Culhane | Development Manager
By Erin Crandell | Project Leader
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