Help Build School Libraries in Rural Guatemala

Our Pathways to Literacy team works hard alongside primary school teachers to provide young students with access to school libraries full of good books to read. They also collaborate with teachers to lead activities that help students learn to read and write. But what happens when the school year ends? In Guatemala, school lets out in early October and classes don’t start again until January. That’s more than a two month break from the regular reading practice kids need to keep working toward literacy! Without constant reinforcement of literacy skills, young students tend to lose ground in their learning.

That’s why our team leads vacation literacy programs at each of our active partner schools every winter. This year, Pueblo a Pueblo’s Pathways to Literacy team is leading sessions in Patzilin Abaj and Nueva Providencia. By the end of the last session, the project will have provided two weeks of literacy-oriented activities to fifty children across the two communities.

The first session of this year’s vacation literacy programming began on October 29th. Lidia, Pathways to Literacy Project Manager, arrived at Nueva Providencia Primary School early in the morning and unlocked the door to the library for the first time in weeks. In the mornings, she worked with a group of younger children from first through third grades, and in the afternoon with a group of older kids from fourth through sixth grades. Each day, Lidia focused on a different theme, like stories, games, art, or theatre. “They are literacy classes,” explains Rebeca, Pathways to Literacy Project Consultant, “but they are more fun than the regular classes the students receive during the school year. The vacation sessions are more engaging, more creative, more dynamic for students—we want to give them a chance to unwind a little bit after the long school year.”

This year was particularly exciting one because of a generous gift from a group of visiting volunteers. The group was in Guatemala for a week of volunteering with Pueblo a Pueblo, and they brought a donation of thirty electronic tablets, already loaded with Spanish-language children’s books and carefully-selected educational applications. At Nueva Providencia, Lidia passed out a tablet to each of the students and soon they were all reading the same story about a mischievous monkey, swiping through page by page in unison. Afterwards, Lidia quizzed the students. “What kind of animal was the main character in this book?” she asked. “What was the moral of this story?”

Pueblo a Pueblo’s vacation camp is the only activity of its kind available to young students in Nueva Providencia and Patzilin Abaj. This summer, fifty kids will spend two weeks reading, writing, playing, and laughing—and now they are even more excited to return to school in January to have more fun in the library! Thank you for helping our team inspire a love of reading, writing, and storytelling among young learners.

Links:

• Pathways to Literacy at Pueblo a Pueblo