The project creates work for 125 indigenous women, using traditional weaving skills, so that they have income to be self sufficient and support their daughters entering a path of formal education.
Guatemalan children on average attend only four years of schooling and only three out of ten students graduate from sixth grade. Less than 20% of all Guatemalans graduate from high school. If a family has limited financial resources, priority is given to educating the male children, often leaving girls at home to attend to domestic chores. Women remain poor because they have not acquired skills to find jobs in the formal sector. Thus the cycle of poverty continues from mother to daughter.
MayaWorks provides ongoing work and training for 125 women and assists them as they support their daughters in formal education. We will provide partial scholarships, academic support through 6 tutoring centers, and school supplies for 100 girls.
Communities will prosper. When women earn an income, they invest it in their families by sending their children to school. Education stabilizes and strengthens the social and economic fabric of society. Girls will have more options for the future.
This project has provided additional documentation in a Microsoft Word file (projdoc.doc).
