This project will create a rich learning environment for 150 children during the 2 months of school vacation while providing a healthy meal daily in this community rife with malnutrition.
Pasajquim is a K'iche' Mayan community of about 1600 in the highlands of Guatemala. The road ends there, and opportunities for the children are few. During their 'summer' vacation in November and December, both the school and modest library close down for lack of funding. Please help us to make this the most rich part of their year, by funding a program that will excite imaginations while also providing a nutritious meal daily to kids who would otherwise go without.
We will continue the enthusiastically received uke-based music program we created in the schools, have painting, Pixab (the elders telling tales of old in native K'iche', to be recorded and archived), crafts like paper mache, puppets, and beading, daily read-aloud hours, science experiments (a first in this community), chess lessons, and dance. ***More than 1/2 the cost of this program will be spent on daily nutrient packed meals...how can you learn and have fun while chronically hungry?
Sparking imaginations! How can you we know the long-term impact? What we do know is that kids will be intellectually engaged and challenged, and that children who often have no more than a cup of coffee to fuel most of their day will be well fed. In this country where indigenous children go to school on average only 3.5 years, this program offers excitement, hope and inspiration.
This project has provided additional documentation in a Microsoft Word file (projdoc.doc).
