We have received several questions recently about Education And More so decided to post the questions and answers here for everyone to read. If you have a question ask it in the comment section below.
Why don’t you offer a child sponsorship program? Presently we are concentrating on helping the entire school which benefits many children but are in the process of developing a sponsorship program to help classrooms of children. Watch this blog and our website for information on this program this fall.
What schools have you helped and how have you helped them? We have helped Nuevo Amanecer Christian School, San Antonio Palopo Quince de Septiembre School, San Jorge Rural Mixta, Palestina Rural and Tierra Linda Rural Mixta schools. Projects include furnishing school libraries with Spanish language childrens books, outfitting hundreds of children with needed school supplies, providing teacher resources and supplies to help teachers teach more effectively, purchasing teacher desks and bookshelves for the classrooms, volunteers teaching English in classes and helping with VBS camp.
Is illiteracy really a problem in Guatemala? Don’t all children go to school for at least a few years? Recent official data from the government gives a figure that more than 1 million children do not attend school in Guatemala with the rate of illiteracy of 40% in the rural areas. Many estimates indicate these figures are very low— and this is in a country of 13 million total population! There are many, many children who only attend school for 1-2 years and from this you can see why illiteracy is so high. Add to that the problem that most children in the rural areas speak an indigenous dialect and try to learn Spanish when starting school which make it doubly hard for a child to learn to read and write in just a couple of years of school. Education is compulsory thru 6th grade — but not enforced.
What does your children’s school look like? Is it one large building or several buildings forming a campus? Are there soccer and other sports fields, swimming pools, libraries and lunch rooms?
Many schools in the rural areas of Guatemala might have only a few classrooms and be constructed of adobe bricks. Sometimes it is made of used lumber and leftover pieces of tin. Often they are unable to keep the roof from leaking during the rainy season. Of course not all schools are like this but all are lacking the necessities for a quality education — like having enough or any textbooks for the children, sports equipment for P.E., teacher resources that help provide a quality education. In today’s world computers are necessary for the children and most rural schools have none.
Education And More is helping Nuevo Amanecer Christian School finish up the second level of their new classrooms so they can move all classes out of the original adobe school. We are also helping to furnish the classrooms with teacher desks and bookshelves. We are helping to furnish the San Antonio Palopo school with children’s books so they can have a library–for the children to choose books to read. San Antonio is also in need of textbooks for the classes and we will be initiating a program to help.
Can your children attend school if you can’t afford to buy pencils and paper for them? Most children in Guatemala can’t go to school if their parents can’t afford to buy the basic school supplies. Why? There are no government or social services to help provide the supplies. San Antonio is a very poor village so in our January mission trip we will be taking donated school supplies and purchasing more supplies when we are in Guatemala to help outfit as many children as possible for the start of the new school year.
If you are interested in seeing the schools and learning more about Guatemala check out the Educational Mission Trip to Guatemalawith Education And More.
There are many different ethnic Mayan groups within Guatemala with unique languages and cultural practices—nearly every village in the western highlands is unique in their dress and customs.
The most widely spoken Mayan dialect is K’iche with nearly a million speakers. Other large groups are Kaqchikel with about 1/2 million and Mam with nearly 700,000. By some accounts there are 22 separate Mayan ethnolinguisitc groups in a country the size of the state of Tennessee. Other groups include:
Achi’
Akateko
Awakateko
Ch’orti
Chuj
Itza
Ixil
Mopan
Popti
Poqoman
Poqomchi
Q’anjob’al
Q’eqchi
Sakapulteko
Sipakapense
Tektiteko
Tz’utujil
Uspanteko
These distinct dialects isolate the people if they don’t also learn the national language of Spanish. Children learn Spanish when they attend school but if a child doesn’t attend school or only goes for 1-2 year it is difficult to learn another language. It is necessary to learn Spanish to be able to get a good job and support a family.
Education And More is helping to educate children and lift families out of poverty!
In today’s Reuters AlertNet there was an article about Map International and their efforts to provide vitamins and medicines to the poor of Guatemala. According to the article ‘half of all the country’s children younger than 5 - more than 1 million boys and girls - suffer from chronic malnutrition. It is the highest malnourishment rate in Latin America. And it is the sixth-highest rate in the world.’
With the rising prices the malnutrition will surely escalate and as food and daily living expenses rise there will be more and more children whose parents are unable to send them to school. Education And More steps in to help fill that need!
The article goes on to state that figures from the World Bank show that 9 million people in Guatemala live below the poverty line. According to statistics the poverty line in Guatemala is set at $4.02 a day and the ‘absolute’ poverty line is $2.01 a day. In the rural areas of western Guatemala many people live on $1 or $2 a day.
It is difficult to understand that kind of poverty in a country so beautiful as Guatemala. But Guatemala is just now recovering from a 36 year civil war — yes, 36 years!
With 9 million living in poverty out of the total population of 12 million it is not difficult to understand that they need help from their friends around the world. In Matthew 25:40 the Lord says ‘Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.’
More and more families are needing help to send their children to school due to rising costs of everyday living but especially the rising cost of food. Nearly every week we read of the crisis getting worse in Central America and especially in a country like Guatemala that already has so much malnutrition and poverty.
On our next trip to visit the schools we will be furnishing as many of the poorer students as possible with school supplies. Many of these students often don’t attend school because they don’t have a pencil or paper. We will be purchasing school supplies in Guatemala and distributing them but need your help with donations.
Can you donate $50 towards this project to help keep a child in school? If so, please send a check or go to our website and click on the donate link to donate with a credit card. Our address to mail a check is: P.O. Box 201, Burlingame, KS 66413
Education And More has a new video that our readers are welcome to share across the web and thru email. It shows children of Guatemala — many of whom we help receive an education by supplying the everyday school supplies.
Recently I read of an incident in Guatemala where one tourist witnessed another tourists very rude and obnoxious behavior to the locals. I don’t know the circumstances surrounding this rude behavior but it is difficult to understand someone visiting another country and then acting badly to the people of that country. When we visit another country we are guests in the country much the same as when we visit another person’s home we are guests in that home. We should act like a guest!
Have you seen tourists demanding this or that at a hotel or restaurant or being condescending to the employees? Have you heard a tourist talking about the local people not realizing that the local may speak both languages? Have you seen this happen with tourists in your own country? I realize that some of this behavior may be that tourist’s normal behavior but I cringe when I think that some tourists think of themselves superior.
The next time we are visiting another country lets stop and remember to act like guests and put our behavior to the test.
Have you recently heard the phrase ‘live a radical life’? When I first saw this phrase it took my mind back to the 1960’s, but the phrase I heard now is referring to living a radical life of committing to do what God asks you to do. Stepping out of your norm and doing the ‘radical’ to serve God.
Kay Warren, wife of well know minister and author Rick Warren, has a fabulous book entitled “Dangerous Surrender: What Happens When You Say Yes to God.” She tells of her passion to help with the problems of social injustice around the world– child labor, poverty, HIV/AIDS, child prostitution, and environmental destruction. After reading a magazine article about the AIDS epidemic in Africa she commented “I had to make a conscious decision. Would I retreat to my comfortable life and my settled plans? Or would I surrender to God’s call and let my heart engage with a cause such as AIDS.” She has now become a voice, an advocate, for women and children around the world with HIV/AIDS.
Maybe you can’t tackle problems on that scale but what is God asking of you? If you can’t reach out across the globe, is He asking you to reach out in your community? Whatever your calling, do it with a passion, do it radically with unbounded enthusiasm. Is God Calling you? Are you listening?
Are you ready to live radically– to live your passion– to make a difference. Whatever your calling, whatever your passion don’t be lukewarm and timid– live radically with a passion to love and serve.
“What does the Lord require of you but to act justly, love mercy and walk humbly with your God” Micah 6:8
What are the typical foods of rural Guatemala? the typical recipes? Tortillas and beans are the daily staples and supplemented only if the family has the extra money to add meat or vegetables. One of the recipes made as a special treat for breakfast is called “mosh”. It is simply oatmeal but made differently than here in the states. Quaker Oats sells a prepackaged mosh but most Guatemalans buy it in bulk bags because it is cheaper. Some schools have a breakfast snack program and serve mosh for a nutritious morning snack to the children who don’t otherwise eat breakfast.
A friend makes mosh by adding about 2 cups of oatmeal to 6-8 cups of water and cooking it for 1 hour, stirring constantly. Then she adds 1 piece of stick cinnamon and more water if needed and one and a half cup of sugar. She cooks it a while longer and adds a cup of milk. The finished mosh was delicious but you couldn’t tell it was oatmeal– it was cooked so long it was liquid and we drank it from a cup.
A really hot sauce that is served at almost every meal is made with chiltepe chili peppers. They are just mashed in a molcajete (mortar) until like a sauce and then a lttle water is added. These little peppers are fiery hot but sure add a kick to your food!
Enma makes a green salsa with jalapenos by cooking them in a little water for a few minutes. Then putting them into a blender along with cilantro, garlic, onion, a little lime juice and salt— all according to taste. Blend until thoroughly chopped and the consistency you like. This salsa I really love!
Tortillas are made by hand at nearly every meal using freshly ground masa. Masa is the dough and is made from corn that has been soaked in lime water. Every morning the women take the soaked corn to the neighborhood mill and have it ground into masa. In Guatemala you can find white, yellow or black corn tortillas. Below is a video of my friend making tortillas.
A volunteer withEducation And More has decided she wants to help us furnish the library at the San Antonio Palopó school with Spanish language children’s books and has set up a book drive with Usbourne Books. Here is the URL for the Book Drive.
Each book you order for the school will bring double benefits because they will get the book you order for them and also earn free books.
Education And More delivered new Spanish Language books to the school in April to begin their library. This picture is of our local volunteer, Rosario, accepting the books. So start collecting Spanish language books today and be sure to go to the Book Drive and help out by buying a book or two.
If you are interested in learning more about the work of Education And More in Guatemala check out our website for information on the 2009 Mission trip. You will have time to learn the ancient art of backstrap weaving— as shown in the video above– plus visit our projects and the women’s groups that make our beautiful handcrafts. Come with us to get to know the beautiful country and people of Guatemala.
