Empowering a Community through Education

Greetings to the ACEI and PCI Family, 

We hope that this message finds you well during these uncertain times. We know that this moment in history is unprecedented for many of us and we are all attempting to find ways to process and cope with the ramifications of a world-wide pandemic. With shut-downs and closures of businesses around the world, we are all looking at an economic future that is uncertain. 

Our project school, Panajachel Colegio Internacional, has not been spared from this economic downturn brought on by covid-19. Our  families rely heavily on the steady flow of tourism in Panajachel for their incomes and with borders closed and many tourists fleeing the country on embassy flights chartered by their home countries; our community is suffering major economic loss.

That means our students and our teachers are also facing uncertain, difficult times. 

While our first fundraiser in December helped propel us into the new year--we are now facing an even more difficult and uncertain future for our school. Many families at PCI have asked for forgiveness on their tuitions as our teachers work tirelessly to continue educating them in their homes (via Google Classroom, What's App, Zoom, Gmail, and another other form of communication that our students and families request). Without any tuition coming into the school and some of our student sponsors unable to continue to support our students--we are struggling to keep our doors open. We know this is a community effort and that's why, with this report we are reaching out again for your help and support. 

What we understand at PCI is that the connection to our students and their families is ever so important in times of crisis. We are working hard to make sure that we are able to keep our school open and serving our students throughout this, by whatever means possible. 

That is why we are launching a new project in order to ensure that our teachers are paid throughout the end of our quarantine and that our students in the most financial need continue to be able to join their classmates online and, in person, when school reopens again. We are looking to raise 10,000USD this month in order to achieve our goals. 

While this may not seem like a lot of money for many schools--this is an amount that ensures that we can get our school to the end of the school year and to hopefully garner enough support that we can move into next year with hopes for a brighter future for our students and families. 

We are hoping that our project gets approved in a few days. Keep checking back to see if you can help! 

We appreciate all the time and effort many of you have put into supporting our school by sharing our story and donating when times have been tough. Our students and teachers appreciate it from the bottom of our hearts.