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We would like to thank our special donors again who make the development of our Green Built school and education for our students possible. We have an update of your impact since "summer" break ended in min-January, and our students have returned for a new school year. Our school is growing, and we are excited to share this culmination of efforts with you.
We now offer another high school grade. We are thrilled to be continuing and close to completing our offerings of secondary education. This is becoming increasingly important as our lower grade students are moving up, and we hope to provide support all the way to university.
We have added 10 new teachers equipped to support our growing student body. These teachers are primarily for our high school grades, as our high school programming is expanding. It has been wonderful to see so many new faces a part of our community!
We have just started our 2nd Green Building Academy on the 1st of March, with 5 eager and motivated participants joining us for the month of the course. We are excited to get going on building a new sustainable home from the ground up, starting with the foundations, whilst also working on a halfway finished LWH green building house next door. Our participants will therefore get a chance to practically work on many different stages of green building, from start to finish. We are hoping to build a community of green builders that spread these urgent values and teachings around the world.
In a small community called "Santa Maria Sibaja" in the valley of the Fuego Volcano, we are now constructing a Health Center for the community. In this disaster relief effort we are partnering with REKKO, who provide medical services, and the Ministry of Health to bring healthcare to more than 105 families. The center is built out of bamboo, trash-bottles and rammed earth tires. Locals are learning how to use local materials and repurpose their own trash. We are excited to have this new Health Center by the end of March.
Thank you for your generous support that allows our students to learn how to tackle issues in their communities, whilst allowing families to benefit from their growth. We will be providing updates on other developments in our school, as well as the projects and initiatives our students are able to produce for the community. Please consider supporting our school further throughout this 2019 year as we are excited to continue this expansion. We appreciate your support and always enjoy the opportunity to share our stories with you, the people that make them possible.
We thought you would like to know how you have made an impact on our students and community! Our middle and high school students have had amazing success this year, finishing 2018 school strong with their individual Green Community Projects! This is a real highlight of our sustainable schools’ development and we are happy to see our democratic curriculum come to life.
After preparation throughout the whole year in planning and investigating, students and teachers eagerly went to work on their final projects. It was fantastic to see our young students dedicated to helping disadvantaged families in their own hometown of Comalapa.
The 1st graders of CETC middle school built a smoke efficient stove for an older couple in dire need of a health-friendly method of cooking. Living just a couple of meters away from the school, they can now cook without respiratory-threatening smoke, leaving a dramatic impact on their lives.
Our 2nd graders built a subterranean water tank to improve water availability for a family in Comalapa. Now the mother can have consistent access to water storage to provide better care for herself and her 5 young sons and daughters.
For the first time at CETC (!), the 3rd graders started their community project of planning for and building a dry composting latrine. The recipient family lives at the top of a hill and used a simple hole as a toilet. They now have a sustainable latrine system which both produces natural fertilizer for their crops AND contributes greatly to the families hygiene and health.
Last but not least, our first high school class constructed a tire retaining wall to help a family in a nearby community, Xiquin Sannai, protect their tiny house for a lifetime. Their living space was in constant threat by a land hang from a cornfield. Now they can safely occupy their home and protect their chickens and garden without the fear of a landslide.
Thank you for your generous support that allows our students to learn how to tackle issues in their communities, whilst allowing families to benefit from their growth. Our 2019 year students would benefit immensely from an end-of year gift, so they can expand our projects and our impact! We appreciate your support and always enjoy the opportunity to share our stories with you, the people that make them possible.
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Great news from our sustainable school. Wednesday 20th of August we have proudly celebrated the 5th anniversary of Centro Educativo Técnico Chixot together with all our 136 students, their parents and our 18 primary and secondary school teachers.
Each grade prepared little cultural ceremonies and traditional dance presentations thanking for the chance to go to this unique school campus. Teachers and students demonstrated the institutions philosophy to the parents by interviewing children of different grades. The questions asked about “What is democracy for you?” and “Why we need to protect our environment?”, left parents impressed of the vision the students have gained here at Centro Educativo Técnico Chixot.
August is dedicated to the youth in Comalapa and various events on Youth and environmental protection happend. There are several "Colectivas" in town that have come up with activities about violence prevention and environment pollution to reach out to young people of the community. For example, the collective Artists of Comalapa, which currently counts five members and is devoted to art painting. After submitting a proposal to create a large mural, the mayor found a suitable area directly on the marketplace in town. The artists started diligently painting the wall with different scenes showing aspects of life and the environment. Within a week, the artists refined the image sections expressing daliy life scenes and nature as a producer of life. "The Pixcaya River is much polluted so we have decided to highlight a building of Long Way Home as a showcase of sustainable and environmentally conscious life", says Roberto Peren. Last Sunday, at the inauguration ceremony we celebrated with many kids from secondary schools. The painting can now be watched at the daily market shopping.
Thank you for your help in our work. We appreciate your support and always enjoy the opportunity to share our stories with you, the people that make them possible!
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Hello dear friend of Long Way Home (LWH). Here are the latest news from our sustainable school in Guatemala. In Comalapa the rainy season just hit and we have started to collect rainwater. The water flows into our 42.500 gallon cistern from all the school buildings' roofs and serves our daily needs.
At the sustainable school Centro Educativo Técnico Chixot (CETC), middle and high school students went to the next step of their project-based curriculum. After the students have presented their individual community projects in Xiquin Sanaii in February, they now have rolled out a socio economic and environmental survey in the community. The students analysed the whole village, a total of 181 families and their housing situation. Based on the information collected, each grade now will chose their perfect family for their green building projects, considering infrastructure, domestic appliances, health and general living conditions. The students and LWH staff are very excited to complete the community projects of a smoke efficient stove, a water tank, latrines and a tire retaining wall by the end of the year.
The school year at CETC is now half way through and our students ended their second semester with exams. We wish all our students luck with these exams and look forward to what they have planned for the rest of the year. To improve financial stability of CETC and to improve teaching our students, LWH will soon be offering a school sponsorship program. We invite you cordially to partner with our school and sponsor CETC teachers and primary, middle and high school grades with necessary materials. Just $40/month will cover all the resources one student needs, including supporting the teachers.
Last but not least the LWH crew is thrilled to start the first Green Building Academy 1st July 2018. The Academy offers hands-on learning experiences that contribute to the development of skilled and socially responsible green builders. The organisation and planning to making this event happen is in the final phase.Our construction crew, the materials to build the house and the local family to benefit from a new green building housing are ready. Last chance to apply for the July session is this upcoming Sunday 10th of June. Don't miss your chance and share the Academy Event Flyer with your friends!
Thank you for your interest in our work. We appreciate your support and always enjoy the opportunity to share our stories with you, the people that make them possible!
In Gratitude,
The Long Way Home Team
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First year of high school has begun
This year we opened the first high school grade at Técnico Chixot! Our school, Centro Educativo Técnico Chixot has been developing a curriculum based on democracy and self-sufficiency. The democratic education model presents a dynamic, interdisciplinary curriculum that guides student-driven, community-based projects that address genuine community needs. Our middle and high school students will now begin planning and implementing a variety of community infrastructure projects that they will carry out in the nearby village of Xiquin Sanaii, Comalapa.
February Workshops at Long Way Home
Sharing knowledge empowers people to become self-sufficient. Feburary was the month of workshops at Long Way Home and we partnered with different organizations and people to learn from each other. We built successfully a cob oven for a local family and their pizza business. Cob ovens are a sustainable, affordable, and easy way to build an oven for many uses. The following weekend we held a medicinal plants workshop in collaboration with a local women of Comalapa. She showed us the secrets and uses of many local plants and their holistic uses in everyday lifes. The last week featured a permaculture workshop with Instituto MesoAmericano de Permacultura (IMAP). This introduction course to permaculture was all about ethics and principles of natural systems, permaculture design and Mayan cosmology. Our most successful workshop was the beginning of a beautiful partnership with IMAP and we had 20 participants from all over Guatemala including other local organizations. We look forward to hosting more workshops to enhance our education center and we invite you to join us next time!
Green Building Academy July 2018
We are excited to announce the inaugural year Green Building Academy with a four-week summer sessions that will give participants a solid background and hands-on experience in green, sustainable construction practices. Academy graduates will emerge as ethical and creative change agents, conscious and culturally competent global citizens, and informed leaders doing their part to create a more sustainable world. A local family with limited economic resources will be involved in construction and will receive the completed home at the end of the Academy. We hope to make the Academy accessible to people from Guatemala and Latin America with a scholarship program as well. Help us spread the word!
Thank YOU!
In Gratitude,
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