To bring education equality to Tzu'tujil Mayans

The Aldea Maya Learning Centre offers many educational and fun learning opportunities.

We have  free computers, internet and photocopying offered in our Learning Centre. This enables anyone in the village to do their homework or reasearch without cost. This is a very important service as there is no internet in the village unless you have a big disc ( which we have). It is very time consuming and expensive to pay for travel to the nearest town, wait for a computer to be free and then pay to use the computer and get photocopies. This keeps the poorest children from continuing their education. Our centre alleviates this problem.

Our Learning Centre has a bilingual library with books in both Spanish and English at all reading levels. We strive to inspire children to read not only to imporove their literacy but to instill a joy of reading.

We started guitar lessons for the younger children. We have child sized guitars so that we can teach music to small children at a earlier age. The joy of learning music is possible at our centre. We are hoping to get more guitars of all sizes so that students can take them home to practice. 

We are also giving English classes and have many flash cards and games to make learning English not only educational but fun as well. Cooperative and competetive games like chess are also available.

Another program at our learning centre is our nutrition and cooking classes. We offer these classes to moms ( and dads) in the community. We also offer them to our middle school, high school and university students.

Finally our Learning Centre is a great meeting area for groups like our Environment Group.

Our learning centre is a small space but is a hive of educational fun.

Aldea Maya has been offering educational opportunities to the students of Chuk Muk, Guatemala for the last 15 years. In 2012, we started the middle school ( BASICO) in the village and made post elementary education available to even the poorest student. Not only did we start the school but we paid for school fees and school supplies of every student. We have continued with this project since then. 

Since 2014 we have been helping the middle school graduates to continue to high school. And in 2016 we started students going to university and trade school. This is the first generation to have this opportunity. 

We presently have 22 students in university and one in trade school. We cover ALL costs: from purchaing feed for pigs, to buying equipment for pastry chef, to supplying car enginines and parts. This can be very expensive when students need to do practicums for several months or even live in another area for 3 years. We do believe it is imperative that our students study a wide variety of programs. Otherwise you end up with all your students studying the same program and no one gets employment.

In 2022, we have students studying law, nursing, business administration, math and physics teacher, educational psychology, elementary education, education administration, lab tech, Xray tech, computer sciences, agricultural engineering and car mechanics.

One student at a time we are improving the lives of families in Chuk Muk.

Aldea Maya has been working with Tzu'tujil Mayans in the Lake Atitlan area of Guatemala since 2007. We started by sponsoring students to attend elementary school. We  have continued to help  students as they finished middle and high school.

We presently have 21 students in university. They are studying: agricultural engineering, social work, business administration, law, systems engineering, mathematics, physics, lab technician, Xray technician, education administration, accounting, and education.

When we started this education program 14 years ago we did not have anyone to tutor our students. Most of our students parents had not gone to school and many did not even speak Spanish. This has now changed drasticaly, as we have our 21 university students playing it forward and helping our elementary, middle and high school students. We are even tutoring some of our university students. For example we have Antonio in first year systems engineering. He is being tutored on basic computer programing by Pedro who is in fifth year systems engineering. And he is being tutored in calculus by Marvin who is working on completing his Masters in Mathematics and Physics.

These university students have worked together to develop and coordinate a quite amazing tutoring program. They work several hours a week with the students for free as they want to help others to become successful. Talk about paying it forward and a full circle experience.

This is an exciting time of year when we get see see a new group of students graduate from high school and make plans for their future.

We have 9 graduates this year and 7 of them plan on continuing into university or the trades. Two plan on becoming lawyers, one is going into nursing while we have another whose goal is to be a system engineer. We have a student whose chosen career is accountant and another wants a future with a business administration degree. Our one trades career will be as a baker.

We started the middle school in 2012 in the village of Chuk Muk because no one was continuing their education past grade 6. It is wonderful to see the students in the village get the opportunity to grow and blossum. They now have big dreams and really have the possibility to help their family and village break the cycle of abject poverty. 

These students will then start to volunteer in our learning centre helping elementary, middle and high school students excel. We will now have 21 university students participating in this pay it forward program. In the learning centre we offer free internet , computers, library books and tutoring to anyone in the village.

It is why our motto is " Fostering Hope"

It has definitely been very challenging for the students who have continued to study during the COVID-19 pandemic. The elementary, middle and high schools were set to reopen when the Delta variant made its presence know in the Santiago Atitlan area. The students have returned to receiving their courses on handouts.

We have set up tutoring in our learning centre. This program is being coordinated by our university students. One tutor will run the course and two others will assist the students. We have been running courses in mathematics, physics, accounting, Engliah and Spanish. For many students this is the only way they can understand the homework packages they have been receiving.

The elementary students will need help with the basics if they do not have an older brother or sister that went to school. The parents usually cannot help as they cannot read or write and did not attend school.

All the students are using the computers in our learning centre and free internet to help with their assignments.