Build a Brighter Future for 80 Kids in Guatemala

The following is a postcard from Lydia Sorensen, GlobalGiving's In-the-Field Representative in Guatemala, about her recent visit to Integral Heart Foundation.

Like any proud mother, it doesn’t take more than a few minutes for the pictures of Doña Ana’s daughter (Yesica) to come out. Yesica is an only child (a rarity in Guatemala) and the apple of her mother’s eye. We see pictures of Yesica as a toddler, Yesica winning the school pageant, Yesica graduating primary school. Sitting there in Doña Ana’s house, on the couch next to the bed that she and Yesica share, it’s obvious that like all mothers Doña Ana would (and does) give everything so that Yesica can have a chance at a better future.

And yet it’s not enough. She tells us that before Yesica got a sponsorship through the Integral Heart Foundation the best she had been able to hope to do was help Yesica complete sixth grade—there simply wasn’t the money for more. Even public school in Guatemala isn’t free, and as the World Bank estimates that almost 58% of the population here have incomes below the extreme poverty line (which is defined as the amount needed to purchase a basic basket of food), school is just a dream for many children. Despite the fact that Yesica’s father isn’t in the picture, and Doña Ana has only been able to find work doing various odd jobs such as taking in laundry, she was committed to giving Yesica the highest level of education she could afford.

Today when we visit Doña Ana in her home, she is alone. With the help of her sponsor Yesica is in high school where she dreams of becoming a teacher. She attends the critical thinking/philosophy class held by the Integral Heart Foundation every week, and studies hard for all her classes. All in all, she is a model student and her mother couldn’t be prouder.

We leave Doña Ana’s house and I wonder, how many other Yesica and Doña Ana’s are out there, hoping against hope for a better future that they cannot achieve alone.