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 | 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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Dec 6, 2017
One Village at a Time

By Robin Rutchik | Project Manager

Green Building Academy Flyer

One Village at a Time

Hero School's Democratic Education model presents a dynamic interdisciplinary curriculum that guides student-driven, community-based projects that address genuine community needs. The school will cultivate a new generation of entrepreneurs, uniquely skilled and equipped to lead their communities with innovative solutions for the future. Privately contracted construction projects will provide practicum opportunities for students, income for the school, and expand awareness and practice of sustainable building. In 2018 our students, construction team and volunteers are going to use the lessons learned from building all over the world to improve infrastructure for each aldea (village) in San Juan Comalapa. By doing this, we anticipate that we will change what the public expects from its elected officials. Future politicians will have to improve their approach to seek election. Our intention is that eventually the presidency of Guatemala, and leadership globally, will be affected by this positive approach to community development.

Click here to support our middle school teachers and education!

This was the first year that the newly evolved curriculum had been enacted in the classrooms of 7th and 8th grade. Our teachers took the theory into practice and have built both a smoke efficient stove (shown in this photo below) and an underground water tank for two different families of our students that were in need. In their classes they chose the families through surveys in social studies, worked out the project in math class and practiced their ask in Kaqchikel class.

Green Building Academy 2018

We are thrilled to announce our first two Academy dates! 2018 is going to be a big year and we need your help to make it successful. It's as easy as saving and sharing the flyer attached to get the word out! More info also at: www.lwhome.org/academy

Do you believe green building can be a way to improve social and economic development? Are you interested in learning to build your own home and live off-grid? Want to explore more sustainable techniques and processes? This is your answer!

R2R Salisbury's Biggest Year Yet!!

Seventh annual Rubbish to Runway Salisbury took place on October 14, 2017 at the stunning Blue Ocean Music Hall in Salisbury, MA. Mayor of Newburyport, Donna Holaday, was the emcee and Adrienne Montezinos was the Mistress of Organization. Over thirty-five pieces of wearable art walked down the runway. With so many creative designs and re-purposing of waste, the volunteer crew of Rubbish created such a buzz that tickets were SOLD OUT days before the event! Thank you to Elizabeth, Nancy, and all the amazing volunteers that made this a huge success! Make sure you don't miss out next year and save the date October 13, 2018. www.rubbishtorunway.org

Fall 2017 Volunteer Groups

This fall our Volunteer Coordinator Sarah had her hands full with back to back groups. Each group helped us move along tremendously and were positive energy around the site! We had several returning groups with Thrive Global, Leap Now (x2!) and Temple Beth Am. We even had an inspiring visit and day of volunteering from Habitat for Humanity! Ream more about their experiences with us here!: https://www.lwhome.org/newsletter-nov-2017

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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

Rubbish to Runway Salisbury

Fall Volunteer Groups

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Sep 7, 2017
Summer of Growth

By Robin Rutchik | Project Manager

Jesse explaining the benefits of a good compost

This summer at Long Way Home has been a growing experience for all. Our middle school students have been working with a local Peace Corps volunteer to start a seed bank at the school; the construction crew is expanding to a new project for financial sustainability; the new curriculum was presented to the Guatemalan National Curriculum board, and more!

In July, Jesse, one of the Peace Corps volunteers in Comalapa, started a project with our middle school students to begin a garden specifically to create a seed bank. We will be one of 2-3 pilot projects in the community that will hopefully expand with great success. This two-terrace garden will grow native plants that are simple to harvest seeds from and grow food. They started with building an efficient compost pile. The next assignment was preparing the garden beds, then testing the soil. We are now waiting for the seeds so that we can plant them! Students are learning the hands-on benefit of growing your own food and the sustainability of collecting your own seeds to continue the process for years. Seeds are a large expense in agriculture in Guatemala and there are very few practices which allow for the people to continue to grow the same crops without buying new seeds each season. We are very excited to be part of the pilot program in Comalapa.

This year Técnico Chixot Construction crew has taken on a project that is proving the financial sustainability model for the school. The majority of our construction crew are now working to build a private home and large tire retaining walls around the property in one of the villages of Comalapa. We were also able to employ 25 more Comalapans in the construction crew. This project is enabling us to continue employing our full crew while also providing about 80% of the operational funds LWH needs to run the school. This is one of the first official construction projects that is proving the school model of financial sustainability, which we look forward to growing to support 100% of operations for Centro Educativo Técnico Chixot. Please keep us in mind if you would like to build sustainably while supporting a great cause!

The Comalapan team of Técnico Chixot are building the school as a site of Democratic Education. In doing so, it supports the creation of a democratic society, in part, through an educational process where teaching and learning is participatory, empowering, and emancipatory. Democratic Education provides pathways for individuals to think critically, work cooperatively, and assume the roles necessary to build a socially just and sustainable world. Because of this, Democratic Education can be a formidable force of change for all those involved and the places in which they live. In a Democratic Education setting, students, teachers, and community members can be transformed into heroes who can courageously take their place in the world as responsible citizens and creative entrepreneurs working for social change.

Our hardworking teachers presented this new curriculum that they have been developing to the Guatemalan National Curriculum (CNB) board this last month. The board was very interested in all the work they have accomplished so far. They asked our team for their analysis of the national curriculum, and hope to be able to include that in their revisions coming up in the next year. They were very impressed with all that our teachers had done and told them to keep moving forward con gusto!

Presenting new curriculum to Guatemala National

Library is colorful and ready for books!

Construction for CETC financial sustainability

Links:

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