Education Guatemala Project #6822

Change a Life, Educate a Child

by The GOD'S CHILD Project

Project Report | Jul 19, 2024
More New Children in the Becas Programme

By Robbie Middleton | Padrinos & Becas

In our last email update we told you about 21 children who we added to the Scholarship Programme for the beginning of 2024. In this update we have a further 22 children who have been added to the Scholarship Programme and are now benefitting from being able to gain an education.

Our Social Workers in the Becas & Padrinos department have visited over 1400 people so far this year. During their visits they have been able to identify new children who are living in extreme poverty and need support to be able to study and break the chains of poverty through education. In May we were given the green light to add 22 of those children to the Becas programme to receive support with their education. Those children received school supplies, rucksacks and lunchboxes as well as scholarship cheques based on their grades.

Two of the new children in our Becas Programme are first grader Melissa and second grader Maria. Although they live far apart, Melissa lives in the valley of Mano De León and Maria lives up in the hills of El Hato, the two are cousins. Melissa is studying hard despite the fact that her village does not have electricity and her teacher is not always able to make the trek up to the village school. Maria, on the other hand, is now living in a better situation since joining the Programme after she and her family received a house build from us this year in June. She is also doing well in school, which looks out over the hills over Antigua.

Also newly added to our Becas Programme are Jorge, Alex, Ricardo, Marta and Marily. They are all part of the same wider family and are 5 of 20 people who are living in the same house in San Gaspar Vivar. When we first visited the house, a large number of the family members were sleeping on the floor. Now, thanks to donations from ANA, all the children have bunkbeds to sleep on. We were able to encourage the parents to enrol their sons but we had to personally take the family’s daughters to the school and enrol them with our financial support. Since joining the Becas Programme, the family is now taking much more interest in the education of their daughters.

Another two children added to the Programme are Alma and Jose. The children live in Callejon San Anton, where various other families in the Programme live. This is the first year that Alma has been able to go to school because, according to the government database, she does not exist. Alma was never registered when she was born and her mother was too scared to register her after the fact. Our legal department is in the process of getting Alma a birth certificate. We were able to enrol Jose and Alma in a school called Sueños, which teaches in Spanish, K’íche’ and Kaqchikel, and has worked with us in the past to help Mayan children access education.

Finally, we have 6-year-old Salma. Salma was added to our Becas Programme after being a patient in Casa Jackson, our malnutrition rehabilitation center for almost 6 months. We have been following up on Salma since she left Casa Jackson and decided that it was important that she continue to receive support to go to school. Salma has Marfan Syndrome which affects her growth and development. She may need further medical intervention in the future and by being a part of our Scholarship Programme we can ensure that we can be there if the need for medical support arrives.

All of the newly-added children have different needs, goals and dreams. We are happy to be able to support their education and hope that they will continue to take advantage of the opportunities they have been given to break out of their cycle of poverty. Some of these children still need sponsorship to support their education. If you are interested in becoming a sponsor you can visit www.godschild.org/product-category/childsponsorship/ and learn a bit more about our children and their hopes and dreams.

The GOD’S CHILD Project has been working for over 30 years to break the chains of poverty through education, housing, nutrition and healthcare. Please click the link below to donate to support us in our ongoing mission.

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Mar 22, 2024
Our New Children in the Scholarship Programme

By Robbie Middleton | Becas & Padrinos

So far this year our Scholarship and Sponsorship programme has had over 1400 visitors to their office. Some are referred to other programmes such as our Service Team and Volunteers programme for house builds, our Empowerment Programme or our Education programme. Many, however, are part of our Scholarship Programme or are looking to become a part of the Programme.

We do our best to visit each of the families to see their need and to identify if they qualify for our Scholarship Programme or not. Those who do qualify we work to be able to add them in as soon as we can.

At the beginning of this year we added 21 new children to our Scholarship Programme. They range from 5 years old up to 19 years old, all with different goals and aspirations.

One of the newly added children to the Programme is a familiar face to those who have been supporting The GOD’S CHILD Project for the past few years. Melvin was supported by Padrinos & Becas from 2021 onwards to help him receive the life-saving treatment for his cancer. Our Padrinos & Becas staff, Robbie and Rodolfo, even donated their own blood so that Melvin could receive his life-saving surgery. Now, 3 years later, Melvin has started school and the Project is supporting him and his brother Emilio on their educational journeys. Melvin would like to be a police officer when he grows up and Emilio would like to be a doctor.

Our oldest new addition is Maria, who is 19 years old. María’s younger brother is already a part of the Programme and María is determined to continue studying as well. María is deaf like her mother and goes to a special school that teaches via sign language. She is currently in 9th grade and is working hard to finish her studies. María’s dream is to be a waitress at Pollo Campero, a popular fast-food restaurant in Guatemala.

The final two new additions we will share are Rosio and Bricelia. Both are starting school for the first time this year. In January the two girls received house builds from the Project. Before, they were living in houses made of sugar cane with dirt floors. Now, their homes are Casas Azules, with cement floors, and the families’ living conditions are much more secure. Bricelia would like to be a hair stylist and Rosio would like to be a teacher when they grow up.

All of the children who have been added have differing needs and situations. As well as receiving their cheques for reimbursement of enrolment fees and their school supplies, some have received Ecofiltros, bunkbeds and stoves. They have been added to our Sponsorship programme and they, along with other children in the Programme can be sponsored on our website at www.GodsChild.org.

The work is not over, however, as we are already compiling the list of the next group of children we would like to add to the Scholarship Programme in the future. These children will also need to be sponsored so that we can continue to provide them with the educational support they need to stay in school and take charge of their future.

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Nov 23, 2023
Student Profiles: Jenny and Rachel

By Robbie Middleton | Becas & Padrinos

This year we have been working in partnership with La Escuela Integrada de Niños Trabajadores (Integrated School for Working Children), a non-profit organization helping provide education for children in Guatemala since 2003, to provide an education for 200 children in our Vista Hermosa Center. We are very happy that the children have been taking advantage of the Vista Hermosa Center and working hard towards a better future.

One such child is Jenny*. Jenny is not only a student in the Vista Hermosa Center but is also part of our scholarship programme along with her older sister, Rachel*. This year, Jenny was in first grade and Rachel was in sixth. Jenny actually failed the school year last year but has been working very hard this year and has passed her classes. Rachel is very erudite and so has been getting good grades both in previous years and this year.

The girls’ mother, Carmen*, is originally from San Antonio Ilotenango, Quiché, around 3 and a half hours away from Antigua. She moved to Antigua around 20 years ago with her husband to find better opportunities for work. Carmen’s husband passed away around 5 years ago as a result of his alcoholism. Carmen looks after her family along with her adult children. She wakes up at 3am each day to make sandwiches to sell in the Antigua market. She doesn’t have her own stall or shop and so has to walk around the market to find customers. There is a lot of competition and so Carmen is not always guaranteed to sell her food or to come home with anything to show for her day’s labour.

The family are renting a single room made of fibrolite, a mixture of cardboard and cement, with a sheet metal roof. There are eight people sharing a single room and the family has two bunkbeds, one of which they were given by the Project, to share between them. The house is in disrepair and is not worth the Q500 ($67) a month that the family pays for the rent.

The family has placed great importance on education as they see it as a way to salir adelante or be successful in the future. Jenny’s mother never had the opportunity to go to school and so she is determined that her daughters have better opportunities than she was afforded. Carmen ensures that her daughters do their schoolwork and hand in everything they need to, even though she isn’t able to help them do the work herself.

Jenny and Rachel are also part of our scholarship programme and so received their school supplies at the beginning of the year and their scholarship cheques from us each month. The cheques are based on their grades, which is motivating them to do as well as they can. Both Jenny and Rachel also have sponsors, who send down gifts and letters of support.

Both Jenny and Rachel have big dreams for the future. Rachel would like to be a lawyer because she wants to defend people’s rights. Jenny would like to be a teacher so she can help people learn to read. In the Vista Hermosa Center they are working towards their goals.

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