Help 50 child laborers finish grade 6 in Guatemala

The school year in Guatemala begins in mid-January and ends in mid- October. So “We’re almost finished!”  say 6^th graders in CEIPA’s two schools for child and youth laborers, who are getting ready to celebrate what for all of them is a big step in their lives: finishing elementary school and preparing to go on to 7^th grade.

One of our 6th grade students shares the following:

My name is Amarilis and I turned 15 in July. I work in the bus terminal market with my mother, where we sell fruit every day except Sunday. From Monday to Saturday we go to the market at 7:00 in the morning and go home at 7:00 in the evening. I take 3 hours off some afternoons to attend classes in CEIPA’s school in the market and do my homework when I get home at night. I should go school every day but sometimes there’s so much work that I can’t.  My mother and I support our family of 6 because my father is ill and cannot work. My older sister also contributes sometimes, but she can’t always work because she is a single mother with two small children. It hasn’t been easy for me to go to school and sometimes I have had to repeat a grade because I have been absent many times because I have to work. When I finish 6^th grade next month then I will go on to junior high next January and will also be able to receive technical training and find a better job to be able to help my family more.

When CEIPA began promoting educational opportunities for child laborers in 1989, the majority of girls from poor families were not even considered for matriculation in first grade, let alone allowed to finish elementary school and go on to the secondary level. Today, more than half of our students are girls and young women!

Amarilis, her classmates and their families are looking forward to their closing ceremony in November.