Empower Maya Youth in a Post-Genocide Community

The school year has come to a close in Guatemala and Limitless Horizons Ixil is celebrating another year full of accomplishments. Thanks to generous supporters like you, we are educating the future change-makers of the community. This year was full of many successes and we want to share them with you, our generous supporters who helped make them possible!

In regards to our alumni, 70% of our 2015 graduates are working, studying, or doing both! Two of our previous internship and training initiative participants, Salvador and Micaela, began university this year and are receiving scholarships from Limitless Horizons Ixil for successfully completing their internships. One of our current interns, Cecilia Jacinta, is studying as well. To further support our alumni once they graduate from our Youth Development Program, we invited our alumni group, Triunfadores Sin Límites (Limitless Achievers), to attend workshops focusing on professional and personal goal-setting and how to have a successful interview. We also invited a human resources specialist to work with our alumni to creating their resumes. Our alumni continue to make us very proud as they pursue their educational and professional goals!

This year we had 2 high school and 13 middle school graduates! We will continue working with our high school graduates by providing workshops on how to apply for jobs and create their resumes. All of our middle school graduates plan to continue with high school and pursue their technical degrees. Some scholars have already applied to schools both in and outside of Chajul to earn their degrees as bilingual secretaries, electricians, primary school educators, and computer specialists.

We provided 10 workshops for our youth and parents on topics including gender equality, teamwork, decision-making, positive communication, bullying, dating and relationships, nutrition, self-esteem, and leadership.

To get ready for next year, we have selected 15 highly motivated scholars who will start middle school in January 2017! Our incoming scholars are currently attending intensive Spanish language classes to prepare them for middle school. After the success of last year’s Intensive Spanish II, we offered this course again this year to our second year middle school scholars to continue improving their Spanish.

To celebrate all of the year’s successes, we took our scholars out for a day full of outdoor fun. Staff and scholars played sports, games, swam, and enjoyed the sunshine! We also held a graduation ceremony and invited all of our families to attend. There were skits, folk dances, contests, and of course, the distribution of diplomas!

Your continued support allows us to improve our services and expand our programs every year. You enable us to give youth the tools they need to be successful change-makers. Thank you for all you do for the youth of Limitless Horizons Ixil!