Greetings from Guatemala.
Last week I bumped into Gustavo (photo on left). He and his family entered our programs back in 2011. In the photo on the right you can see him (left) and his mom and brothers.
After 6 years with us Gustavo now has his own mobile mechanic service. His older brother Eduardo (right) works for one of the biggest telecom companies in the city. And, the little guy in the middle just started work for a car dealership in the city also.
This is the effect of your support of our programs. Gustavo was really appreciative of all the support we gave them, high-school and college fees, books, clothing, and food for the family so that they could study and not have to work as children.
Our work here in Guatemala with our 70 students ages 4-13 continues unabated :-)
100% Match is now ACTIVE on all new monthly Sustaining Sponsorhips donations:
https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/funding-the-integral-heart-school-in-2023/
With love and respect,
Mick Quinn & Debora Prieto
Co-Founders.
Photo updates of our work:
We update our photo albums twice per month here:
https://www.facebook.com/integralheartfamily/photos_albums
About us:
Integral Heart was founded in 2011 by Mick Quinn and Debora Prieto.
They had vacationed in Guatemala in 2009 and were drawn to its beauty but also felt compelled to respond directly to the potential they saw in the younger generations.
They have lived year-round in Guatemala ever since.
The Integral Heart Family School is 100% crowdfunded. We currently have 220 individuals whose monthly and annual donations support our work.
This core team of Sustaining Sponsors raises about one half of the total funds needed to operate our school and programs.
The rest of the funding is raised in special events and in participation with our funding partner, GlobalGiving based in Washington D.C.
Education is the heart of our work. Our school is home to 70 children receiving classes in Spanish, English, Psychology, Human Rights, Homework Help, Art and serves 1,500 meals monthly.
Since 2011, our programs have delivered classes and support to over 1,200 students and their families in Guatemala. We also provide a food basket to each of our 45 sponsored families.
See our Full History in photos:
IHF School History Since 2010
5-year Dream Plan: We are saving to buy/build a school which incorporates our existing educational programs and an animal rescue center. Imagine, One Child - One Animal :-)
If you would like to see our plans for this, click here :-)
See our 5-Year Dream Plan
Good morning from Guatemala,
GivingTuesday happened this week, our single largest fundraising day of the year!
Thanks to you, we raised a little over $19,000 on the day, which was $4,000 beyond our goal for the day.
We are very happy about this!!
This newsletter is update #1 of 2, which we will send in a week or so with a link to all the great photos from our Holiday party at the school that also happened on GivingTuesday.
So, please be patient as we sort out all of the best photos for you.
With best wishes,
Mick Quinn & Debora Prieto
Co-Founders
And all the staff and students of The Integral Heart School in Guatemala.
Family is very important in Guatemala. Our foundation is also a big family in which people from the whole world engage together in order to build a better future for our children. This is why our name is the Integral Heart Family.
Integrity, heart and the core and effort of a family are brought together to make this work possible.
But besides the virtual family of supporters throughout the world, we also have at our school a family of five generations of strong women who represent the past, the present and the future, but that are working together with us in this project.
In the picture below you can see five women. They all are from the same family:
(Left to Right) Doña Graciela is 75 years old and the mother of 6 childre. She is a widow and has no pension from the government. She suffers from a heart condition for which she needs medicines; we help her with that and groceries. She is the mother, grandmother, great grandmother and great great grandmother of the other ladies in the picture
Mamá Sonia is 51, she is the daughter of Doña Graciela, and the mother, grandmother, and great grandmother of the other ladies. She is our chef at the school and the only one of Doña Graciela´s offspring who helps her with her needs.
Marisol is 37, she is the granddaughter of Doña Graciela, the daughter of Mamá Sonia, the mother of Saida and the grandmother of Sarai. She is our social worker at the school. She and Mamá Sonia are the ones who really make things happen and run the school at all levels.
Saida is 14, she is the daughter of Marisol, granddaughter of Mamá Sonia, and great granddaughter of Doña Graciela. She is also Saray´s aunt. She is in our program, she has been with us for years and wants to study to become a veterinarian to help us develop our next project which will include a pet rescue shelter.
Saray is the little one, she is only four but full of beings. She is part of our next generation of students. She is being well stimulated since birth and we have many hopes in this new generation. She is the niece of Saida, granddaughter of Marisol, great granddaughter of Mamá Sonia, and great great granddaughter of Doña Graciela.
Thank you so much to all of you who make possible to give hopes and a dignified life to so many generations. This is just an example of the many number of families you all help with a much better life and future.
We believe that learning is important but also of significance for us is that the student of The Integral Heart School also develop their moral standards. As Theodore Roosevelt once said “To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society.”
[NEWSFLASH - Thursday July 18th is our 50% Match and $5,000 Bonus Day here on GlobalGiving - Stay Tuned]
Therefore, we encourage them to serve in their own community. Our students and staff were very involved last year in the months after the volcano emergency and many of our kids jumped at the chance to help those affected by the tragedy. They also help in other ways with our local families, such as with their transportation, cleaning, bringing groceries they need to their homes when they are sick or too old and so on.
But, this month our students and staff decided to spend a day volunteer at a nearby dog shelter that is home to 65 abandoned/street dogs. This a huge issue in Guatemala, even a short drive to our local town you can count 20-30 of them roaming the streets, uncared for and unloved.
The shelter is called Amor Animal and here you can see some pictures of the work they did on this full day out. The students, under the direction of the shelter caretaker (1) swept and bathed and brushed, cleaned ears and eyes, played with the loneliest and the most needy ones and most of all, gave love and hugs and pats all around.
As Immanuel Kant said: “He who is cruel to animals becomes hard also in his dealings with men. We can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals.”
We want to truly appreciate the hearts of all of you who make this possible. Because of you, love is expanding in all directions and to all sentient beings. Thank you very much.
The Integral Heart Family
Education is the core of our work. Yet, one of the biggest challenges for educators is the fact that not all children have a love of learning. When you work the children of parents who are forced to eke out a living on less than five dollars per day, who in many cases, never went to school as children themselves, there are rarely books or other educational challenges at home.
The children of the Integral Heart Family School are mostly growing up in this kind of environment and even if many parents understand the importance of their education, they don´t have the tools nor the means to empower or inspire a love to learning in their children.
Here is where we do our magic with the children, sharing with them how fun learning can be through reading.
The library is one of our favorite projects. Being ourselves, voracious readers, we love to see our children picking up a book and reading it just for fun. We understand that all the worlds of adventure, imaginary places, stories of other people, countries, and cultures can open into a creative and fresh desire to learn. In an era in which technology, video games, cell phones and all kinds of other diversions are all over the place, seeing a child reading a book becomes even more heart-warming.
We love to sit with them, read all together, laugh, enjoy, pretend we are the characters and always, the kids just want more and bring more books to continue.
The older ones prefer to pick their own book and enter privately in a world of fantasy and wonders.
The impact this project is creating in our children is visible and tangible. They dream bigger, believe in themselves and are more open to new possibilities and opportunities.
Thank you all who made this project possible. Without you many worlds will be vanishing for our children
With best wishes,
All 80 children of the Integral Heart Family School
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