Mid-term Report from Guatemala!

It is hard to believe that 6 full months have already past and that we are already halfway through our 1 year assignment here in Guatemala! We’ve learned so much and had many rewarding experiences. We’ll try to summarize the past 6 months in this one blog entry!

As Director of Education, Sandra is responsible for further developing the education system in the school and she was able to introduce a lot of ideas based on her graduate studies in education and from her experience as a teacher in Canada.

For the past 6 months, Sandra has been developing and conducting training workshops for the school staff, including the principal and 9 teachers. These workshops are essential because the teachers have very little formal training on teaching in a classroom since a university degree in Education is not required to teach in Guatemala.

Sandra's first workshop was on multiple intelligences, where teachers received instruction on enhancing the learning environment in their classrooms. She also held workshops on: creating educational visual aids; capturing the reading interest of students; active science in the classroom; and, how to provide students with clear objectives and expectations. She will continue to hold workshops almost on a weekly basis until the end of the year.

Sandra also developed a reading program for the entire school. It is not common for a lot of the poorer people in Guatemala to pro-actively read books on their own, which poses a real challenge when it comes to developing their literacy skills. Furthermore, children at our school are not exposed to books because it is likely that their parents cannot read and/or the household cannot afford to purchase books. In order to nurture a habit of reading, Sandra developed a reading program that required each grade to spend 30 min a week in the new library. The program started by introducing students to genres of literature where they had to determine the characteristics of a given genre. This involved the students reading a sample from that genre and then completing a fun activity related to the text. As part of the reading program, Sandra created CHILE, which stands for: Creciendo (growing); Hablando (speaking); Imaginado (imagining); Leyendo (reading); and, Entendiendo (understanding). This program is designed to allow students to freely choose a text of their own to read independently, or with a friend, and then discuss their opinions on the texts they read.

A program that we’re really proud of is the English program that Sandra developed for the Kindergarten, Grade 1 and Grade 6 classes. The program includes lesson plans, instructions for the teacher, songs and even games for the children to learn basic, conversational English. The children at the school come from impoverished backgrounds and just to have an opportunity to go to school is such a blessing. On top of that, introducing the children to English gives them an advantage and opens their doors to more opportunities that allow them to break their cycle of poverty. Formal English classes are only available to those families with money, but we are giving these children the same opportunity for free. Check out a couple videos below of our Kindergarten children singing...in English!

Perhaps one of Sandra’s most important responsibilities is to be a mentor to the education staff at the school. A number of the teachers are quite young (average age of 20) and they have a great opportunity to come to Sandra for guidance and support. Sandra also provides advice to the principal of the school in managing the staff and the school’s curriculum.

As Assistant Director, Steve is responsible for supporting the AOJ Directors in their management duties. One of Steve’s responsibilities is the management of volunteer teams that come from across Canada and the United States to volunteer in Guatemala. These teams range from 10 – 20 adults and they come for a week to build houses for needy families, distribute food bags or interact with the children at the school. Steve is responsible for determining the team’s schedule, prioritizing their projects, and directing the team’s activities during their stay in Guatemala. For example, since arriving in February, Steve has organized and coordinated the construction of 38 houses for needy families in the rural areas of Guatemala (like the one pictured here). To date, a total of 6 teams through our regular AOJ network and 4 teams through other non-profit organizations have come to volunteer with us in Guatemala. This does not include the individual non-affiliated volunteers who work with us on a part-time basis to take on various tasks in AOJ. Through networking and advertising efforts, we are now experiencing a steady stream of volunteers to help us meet our mission objectives. Steve is also responsible for managing these volunteers and their activities.

Steve also has been helping the organization find efficiencies within its management structure. As the mission continues to grow, the ability to make critical management decisions are becoming more necessary and frequent, particularly as more sponsored children are added to the school and a higher pace of operations brings its inherent challenges. In response, a management committee comprised of senior staff was created to handle these decisions in an efficient and effective manner. Steve is now advising and supporting this committee on different aspects of management through workshops on various management themes. His first workshop was how to make decisions based on a risk-management system, which Steve custom designed with the organization’s needs in mind. Future workshops will discuss themes such as how to effectively manage committee meetings, communication in an organization, and being effective leaders.

Steve is also responsible for managing the new Centro de Capacitación (Development Centre), which includes: a computer school; a beauty salon school; and, an artisan craft school. This is where students from elementary grades to high school can learn specific skills and trades that they can use to earn money. Generally people would need to pay a lot of money to take these courses but our students, who obviously do not have that kind of money, have free access to these courses to give them a hope to find a job or even start their own business. Some of the skills they learn include: basic computer operations; making textiles and souvenirs; sewing; and, cutting hair. Steve also created a “Children’s Market” that is run through the Centro de Capacitación. This is where students sell the various things they have made to the teams that come to volunteer at AOJ. This “market” teaches the students how to manage money and the value of having a marketable skill. To date, we raised more than 5100 Q from the market sales that will be invested in school projects and materials. The Centro de Capacitación also includes a health clinic that employs a registered nurse who looks after the medical needs of the students and staff of the school.

A customer "trying" to negotiate a better price.

The Market Team with some happy customers
in the background.

In addition to our respective responsibilities, we manage a number of joint projects as well. The library is our biggest project and you can follow its progress on our other blog entries that are devoted entirely to this project. We also coordinated a clothing distribution program to hand out donated items that arrived in a container shipped from Canada, courtesy of WARM in Alberta. This container was filled with bicycles, clothes, toys, office furniture and much more needed items for the people in Guatemala.

We determined a schedule to distribute the donated items to all the sponsored families at the school (at least 400 families) and all our staff, who also come from very humble backgrounds and are not much more economically well-off than our sponsored families. Everyone was very grateful and overjoyed that they were able to receive these gifts. The items were distributed over several days, with staff and families arriving to the distribution room on an hourly schedule. At times it was very hectic but we were fortunate to have our friends from Ottawa, Canada visit us during that week. They offered to help in anyway they can so we gave them responsibility to manage the schedule and the distribution of items. They did an amazing job with all the people coming and going and helping them choose their items. It made the experience much more special as they were our close friends from our home town!

We also had a lot of fun projects involving the children of the school. Whether it’s judging a regional aerobic competition, taking pictures of the students for the sponsorship program or giving out annual donations such as shoes, these less serious activities make our jobs fun and that much more rewarding.

Steve giving his best Simon Cowell impression.

Grade Six children receiving a pair of brand new shoes.

One of the annual sponsorship photos - just 399 more children to go!

We also made meaningful relationships with community members from poor rural areas in Parramos and Pampay. One of our goals was to really connect with these communities so that they can be comfortable with us and don’t see us as foreigners who do not want to mingle with the locals. We’ve tried hard not to visit as much “tourist attractions” and attend more local cultural events (see blog entry: “Mother’s Day in Pampay”) and experience the personal lives of the friends we made here. For example, Sandra participated in an indigenous engagement party for one of the teachers at our school, which was really interesting as we got to witness the two families “negotiate” the wedding details of the future bride and groom.

We have really enjoyed our time here thus far. The only difficult part is being without our family and friends back in Canada. However, we are fortunate to have directors such as Rafael and Claudia Araneda who welcomed us warmly and gave us the flexibility to put our ideas into action. The rest the staff at AOJ has also been very kind to us and made us feel at home. We feel part of a new family here in Guatemala (Steve even found a Mini Me!) and their faith in us has given us the opportunity to truly be part of something special.

Stay tuned for more updates for the rest of the year! Yes, we are trying to post more frequently…!





Steve and his Mini-ME