Empower a Girl in Guatemala: Education after COVID

“Teaching is more than conveying knowledge, it is inspiring change”

Among small towns full of magic and lots of color, is the Tolimán volcano, specifically in the municipality of San Lucas Tolimán, in the department of Sololá. It is believed that the origin of the word Tolimán is Tuliman or “place where the Tul is harvested” (a plant that grows on the shores of the lake). 

During its ascent, you can notice extensive vegetation such as coffee, corn, beans, bananas, plantains and avocados; also, the ‘luqueños’ comment that they have seen a diversity of animals such as deer, tigers, monkeys, snakes, birds and once upon a time lions. The ascent can take more than 7 or 8 hours, and at the top, you can appreciate a majestic landscape and the beautiful Lake Atitlán.

Currently, the region is home to more than 27,145 inhabitants and the economic diffculties of families are a factor that stands out in the communities surrounding the slopes of the Tolimán Volcano.

An important fact is that the children who have the opportunity to be enrolled in an educational center also run the risk of dropping out of school, as they are forced to perform other activities such as field work, handicrafts, embroidery, weaving, and developing their drawing and painting skills. This is also a cause of school dropout and low performance in the teaching-learning process. 

Our action as a project, in addition to the training and the delivery of the economic stipend, is to carry out individual or collective tutoring to detect situations that are being an obstacle to the academic formation of our scholarship girls. 

All this is done in order to resolve situations encountered and strengthen the skills and attitudes of the scholarship girls for their integral growth and prevent them from dropping out of school. 

The intervention of the Scholarship for Girls program is crucial to stop school dropouts and for the girls to have a better quality of life, both for them and for their families.

With your contribution, you are supporting the development of many girls in need. Every donation allows us to continue our work, for a better world. Thank you very much!

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Along with awakening the sun, each member of the Guatemalan families rises to receive the opportunities that the day brings. Every activity carried out promotes respect for Mother Nature and gratitude for life.

Guatemala is a multicultural and multilingual country full of traditions and customs; one of those traditions is to celebrate an important event with a delicious culinary dish called ‘Pulique’. The preparation of this succulent dish is led by the most knowledgeable woman, distributing the tasks equally among the group. To begin with, the beef or chicken is cooked in a clay pot over low heat, while another group of women grinds the tomatoes, onion and various spices on a grinding stone. To taste the recado added to the broth, where the meat is cooked, then mixed and left to boil until it is a colored soup, which is eaten hot with vegetables. During this important moment, traditions are practiced in a natural way, with all the family and friends.

A similar experience is what we live in the Scholarships for Girls program since we also carry out activities that generate coexistence between parents and scholarship recipients. Community service fosters solidarity and the commitment of both actors (parents and girls) to the community, as an ethical and civic norm. Our goal is to strengthen teamwork and organization, and to locate leaders that will benefit the project. Some of the community work that is carried out in the project are: planting trees or flowers, placing garbage cans, delivering food to elders or less fortunate members of the community, cleaning the school or
classroom. 

Our actions are always guided by the joy that lives in the hearts of each girl, knowing that they have the support that will allow them to continue studying and thus be able to obtain a better quality of life.

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In 1902 the Santa Maria Volcano experienced a strong eruption that triggered the formation of Santiaguito, this volcano is located 12 kilometers from the center of the city of Quetzaltenango, in the southwest of the Republic of Guatemala, and is one of the youngest volcanoes in Guatemala.

Volcanoes always give lessons of persistence and patience, because going up is not easy. It can be achieved on the first attempt, or there can be months of preparation and physical and mental fatigue. But when you have passion, the motivation does not allow you to give up your goal, so you keep trying until you achieve it.

With the same persistence, we completed the first training for scholarship recipients and parents, with the theme ‘Self-esteem’, whose goal is to help girls and young women to identify and strengthen their self-esteem in order to live in a more integrated and fulfilling way. The goal to achieve with parents is to apply actions that, through empathy, approach their daughters, and express compliments that build a confident personality and a bond of trust between parents and daughters.

Sometimes the road is complicated, but with the support and love of the parents, the accompaniment and perseverance of the Becas team, the girls and young women no longer give up easily; they analyze options, look for opportunities, and have learned to be more grateful for the little things, in addition to recognizing the efforts they put into practice every day.

Thank you for believing in the potential of the scholarship recipients, because with your contribution, we are getting closer to fulfilling our dreams and goals!

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The Guatemalan artisan confectionery stands out for the variety of agricultural production crops and the fertile soils, so artisans were ingenious in taking advantage of the natural resource, making sweets with fruits and seeds that are produced in our country, which are: Figs in honey, pepitoria candy, marzipan, chamomile candy among others.

The recipes to elaborate the typical sweets are panela, sugar, vegetable and firewood since they are elaborated at high temperatures.

In our educational recipe, two ingredients can never be missing: calling and commitment. These two ingredients are always present in the actions of the scholarship technician, achieving the school permanence of girls and young women, through the sensitization of teachers capable of reinventing themselves and committing themselves every day to help the real needs of their students, so as not to repeat patterns year after year, course after course.

At the same time, monitoring of Educational Centers is carried out, to highlight their capacity for innovation, which is capable of converting traditional education into something different.

All this must be accompanied by enthusiasm, which is the essential ingredient to never lose heart in attempting to achieve the best educational results. Enthusiasm is the salt of education.

There is no single recipe for good education, but the most important thing is to “Educate” to see a child or young girl full of goals, dreams and fantastic stories.

Thanks to your support and trust! in our work we have achieved that 4,025 girls continue their studies at the primary and basic levels.

“Education and cooking have a lot in common. A good teacher and a good cook are those who know how to mix the right ingredients and in the right proportion to achieve the desired result.”

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At 4,092 meters above sea level, in the Department of San Marcos, a place with cold weather and fog is the Tacaná volcano. It offers a privileged view of the volcanic mountain range of Guatemala, being the second-highest volcano in Central America, and is characterized by its flock of sheep and shepherds. It is worth mentioning that the summit is located on the borderline between Guatemala and Mexico.

Due to the proximity to Mexico, entire families migrate to Mexican farms in search of work, affecting the decisions and opportunities of children, which promotes a vicious cycle that lasts for generations. For this reason, the ‘Scholarship Project’ is committed to the education of girls and young women.

With much enthusiasm and energy, we began extracurricular training for the scholarship recipients, with topics such as reading, mathematics, and self-esteem, in order to encourage habits and a change in their thinking, in search of new opportunities to improve the quality of life of the families that each one of them represents.

At the same time, we started with training sessions for parents on the subject of self-esteem to achieve emotional stability for parents so that they can become involved in the academic education of their children.

In the Tacaná area, we serve 277 girls at the elementary level, with the desire to provide the tools they need to produce a change that will impact themselves and their families.

Thanks to your support, we will continue our struggle to be better people every day, promoting opportunities for personal and professional growth in each of the scholarship recipients, and contribute to the families’ own growth in communication, honesty, and love.

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