Guatemala
Our program in Guatemala has been running for two years and has quickly become one of our most successful programs to date. Guatemala is a country full of cultural diversity, Mayan roots, and beautiful scenery, making it a tourist hot-spot for many Europeans and North Americans. Unfortunately, this has done little to improve the living situation of the rural poor throughout Guatemala.
Because the Mayan culture is still prevalent throughout the country, volunteers in Guatemala are often in villages and communities where Spanish is a second language to a native dialect or not spoken at all!
Here are a few highlights from the years past:
2002: Volunteers set up our first program in Chimaltenango, a small town about an hour from the capitol. The team begins work with two partners: SHARE and ADAPD, both of which work in the more rural villages surrounding Chimaltenango. Volunteers spend the summer teaching Square Foot Gardening to several families, painting a school, and working in an impoverished health clinic (amongst many other projects)
2003: Volunteers continue work around Chimaltenango. With donated funds, they build desks for a nearby school. Maia Stoker, an RN from Provo, starts visiting nearby villages and performing house calls for many of the families that work with our partners, teaching them vital health skills and helping to heal hundreds of individuals. Volunteers teach a handicraft to one community of women that use the new skill to sell in the market. English classes grow and square foot gardening efforts are continued.
Volunteers in Guatemala will have the opportunity to live in a more remote area away from the capitol. Conditions are slightly more rustic than those in El Salvador (for volunteers, not for the people) and volunteers will be working with many people that do not speak Spanish, thus translators or interprestors from our partners are needed on some of the projects.
In the future, HELP International plans to expand our efforts in Guatemala and further develop our partnerships with SHARE and ADAPD.