Education Guatemala Project #2402

Help School fight Climate Change w/ Green Building

by Long Way Home, Inc.

Help School fight Climate Change w/ Green Building

Project Report | Sep 4, 2018
5th Anniverary of our School!

By Thomas Hartig | Communication Officer

Anniversary celebration

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!

Anniversary celebration

LWH Mural painting

1st Green Building Academy

Links:

Centro Educativo Tecnico Chixot

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Jun 4, 2018
Students go green

By Thomas Hartig | Communication Officer

Student writing exam

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

Teacher and student

Community Survey

CETC student

Students playing gitar

Links:

Attachments:

Green Building Academy Flyer (PDF)

7 Attachments

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Mar 6, 2018
Tecnico Chixot starts with community projects

By Thomas Hartig | Outreach & Communications

Heydi Bal, Teacher Tecnico Chixot

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.

Just last week we watched proudly as our middle and high school students presented their projects to the entire community of Xiquin Sanaii. This will be the beginning of beautiful new chapter for Long Way Home and Técnico Chixot! The village is about 10km outside the center of Comalapa in the mountains and the residents face infrastructure issues that are common in rural areas of Guatemala. Each grade presented their project as a solution after describing the problem that it addresses. For example, respiratory illnesses and deforestation are large problems that affect many communities in Guatemala. 7th graders at Tecnico Chixot will build smoke-efficient stove for a family that will help to solve these issues one family at a time. Many indigenous people in rural areas face problems like no access to water, bad cooking conditions and/or worse sanitation situation. All of these problems reduce health and overall well-being of indigenous families, especially women and children. Our students of Técnico Chixot will begin to survey all the families in the village to chose who is most at need for each project that the students will then implement for the final project of the year. The green building projects include the construction of a smoke efficient stove, a water tank, latrine and a retaining wall which our students then will carry out in the near future under the technical guidance of our experts and teachers.

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!

Inaugral session: July 1 - July 30, 2018

Thank YOU!

A big thank you to all of our followers for supporting Long Way Home and the children of Técnico Chixot here in Comalapa, Guatemala. We also would like to inform you about some new GlobalGiving Projects which are coming up to give you more specific donation options for sponsoring the students of Técnico Chixot each month with tuition and school supplies, as well as the community projects mentioned, and scholarships for our Green Building Academy. We wish you all the best, please stay tuned and thank you for supporting Long Way Home!

We coudn't do this without you. Thank YOU!!

In Gratitude,

The Long Way Home Team

Selvin, High School student

Cob Oven Workshop

Medicinal plants Workshop

Permaculture workshop

LWH Academy July 2018

Students presenting community projects

Community of Xiquin Sanaii

Links:

Green Building Academy 2018

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