STOMP! in Guatemala

One of Sandra’s duties as Director of Education is to teach workshops to the teaching staff, the majority of whom are quite young (average age of 23) and do not have much experience in various areas such as class-room management techniques, education stimuli, or alternative teaching methods to capture the learning interests of a broad range of students. In this case, Sandra’s workshops become very valuable to get the teachers exposed to different ideas.

In one recent workshop, Sandra explained how to incorporate artistic expression in the classroom. Artistic expression is so critical for our students to gain self-confidence and to develop an identity that will be key to their intellectual development. The problem is that in Guatemala, artistic expression is not really common or encouraged so our teachers have very little resources to draw upon to teach their students.

To demonstrate how artistic expression can be fun and informative, Sandra introduced "stomp". This is a distinct, sub-genre of physical theatre where the body is incorporated with other ordinary objects as a means of producing percussion and movement. It has become a powerful tool in North American schools to teach alternative means of creative expression and improve the self-confidence of normally timid children.

In this particular workshop, Sandra first talked about the importance of artistic expression and gave a few examples of simple activities that the teachers can use. Sandra then showed a video clip of the STOMP! dance troupe, which is a UK-based theater group who has become world famous for its performances. Then the big moment arrived and Sandra had the staff organized into teams, with each team needing to create a short musical presentation using only objects they can find on mission property. The interesting thing was that almost all of the mission staff got involved (not just the teachers in the workshop) because they were so eager to participate! They did an excellent job as they used ordinary objects such as brooms, paint cans, garbage lids, plastic tubes and even running water to make beautiful rhythms. All the teachers, even the ones who were really shy, had a fun time but most of all, they learned a new skill to get the children excited about learning.

Below are a couple videos of the staff so you can see what they came up with on their own. You can see from the videos that the teachers were quite creative in making music by only using ordinary objects they found on the mission grounds!

International Day of the Book

April 23rd is "Day of the Book" and on this day, schools and organizations throughout the world are celebrating the appreciation of books and the enjoyment that comes from reading. Since our goal here in Guatemala is to encourage the children of the community to read, we decided to celebrate the "Day of the Book" (El Dia Del Libro) for the first time ever in the school's history by holding a door-decorating contest and a book-reading contest.

The door-decorating contest required each grade to decorate the entrance to their class in a way that would represent the cover of the book they are reading in class. We invited "celebrity" judges (Our Director-General, a Canadian volunteer, and a librarian from the Spanish Embassy) to evaluate each door based on a specific set of requirements, including: creativity, symbolism and a clear indication of the book being read in class. Each class also needed to have a student at each door who can summarize the book they are reading and answer any questions from the judges.
It was amazing to see the whole school get really excited about this contest by showing off what they were reading! Every student and teacher worked so hard this past week to have their door so beautifully decorated and the students did an amazing job explaining their books and answering the questions of the judges, who were really tough!

It was hard to choose which pictures to post because all the classes did such a wonderful job and you can easily tell that the teachers and students put careful thought into decorating their "book cover".

For us, it was really encouraging to see the classes read such a wide range of books. From Dr. Suess to the Chronicles of Narnia, every grade from Kindergarten to Grade 6 were reading books that just a year ago they never even heard of. To know they are exploring different world and adventures every day gives us a great satisfaction, especially when these books can give them a moment of escape from the desperate living conditions they come from.





















Below is a picture of the winning door: Grade 5. The book they read was "La Telarana de Carlota" ("Charlotte's Web" in English). The student pictured here really impressed the judges with his knowledge of the book and the way he answered the tough questions.

The other event we held was called "Battle of the Books!", which was a book-reading contest that tested the students' knowledge of the books they read. Each grade sent a representative group of 5 students, who each read 4 books, for a total of 20 books read in that group. Then they competed against each other by answering questions from the moderator about the 20 books they read! Below you can see that it was a big event as all the grades came out to support their classmates. Some even had pom-poms and banners to cheer them on!














In order for each team to answer a question from the moderator, they had to buzz in. However, since we didn't have an electronic buzzer, we just let the students "buzz" in Guatemalan style by using a tambourine! It was really funny to see them shoot up from their seat and shake the tambourine when they knew the answer!

Often times it was really tense as the rounds went by because the questions got more difficult. In the final round, it came to the Grade 3 class against the Grade 6 class. The Grade 3 underdogs put up a good fight but the Grade 6 class won by 1 point. It was a great effort by all the participating groups, who clearly impressed everyone by reading and remembering the key plot points of 20 books!

Below is a picture of these exceptional students, who in our eyes, are all winners because they took the initiative to grasp the importance of reading despite the environmental challenges they face.

Reading is not really valued, especially in the poorer communities where books are very difficult to come by. This is because books are a costly luxury when it comes to choosing between buying a book or buying food for the family. In addition, the parents of the students in our school are illiterate so they wouldn't get much encouragement to read at home. For us, a simple event such as celebrating the "Day of the Book" means so much for these kids to show that reading can be fun. All we had to do was supply the books and they did the rest! It's important for them to appreciate reading at an early age because if there is one thing that can help them break the cycle of poverty, it is the joy and appreciation of continued reading.

Below is a picture of Sandra, who organized the entire day including the "Battle of the Books" contest and the door-decorating contest. Her reaction in the picture sums up her feelings as it was a great day indeed to see the great work of our students....kids that most people have given up on, but we haven't.

Giving in Pampay

One of the services that we are proud of here in AOJ is to help a poor community called Pampay, which a small village made up mostly of indigenous peoples (see blog entry "Mother's Day in Pampay").

For the last 5 years, we have been providing assistance to this community as part of our regular services in Parramos and Guatemala City. Just recently, the efforts in Pampay has increased due to the generous contributions of donors in Canada. As a result, AOJ is investigating innovative programs to help the people of Pampay to find additional ways for self-sustainment and growth. Since every child in this community has been sponsored by a person in Canada (as the ones pictured above), AOJ has the opportunity to ensure that these children have every opportunity to get the help they need to succeed.

Along with introducing community programs, we also try to help out with providing materials to the families that otherwise they cannot afford. One example is giving each school-aged child a kit of school supplies, which has essential items such as notebooks, crayons, rulers, scissors, pens, etc. These are things that would be quite expensive if the familes had to buy these supplies on their own.

As you can see from the pictures of the school supply distribution in Pampay, the children have huge smiles on their faces as they received their school kits. It was really encouraging to see that the children were so happy to receive a bag of school supplies, which we hope translates into a real motivation to value the gift of an education. Below is a picture of all the children of the community and their school kits, ready for an exciting year of learning new skills and discovering new adventures!

Another way we were able to help the community was to give each family a bicycle. The bicycles came courtesy of a non-profit organization in Calgary called WARM. This organization raised funds to ship a container to Guatemala, which contained hundreds of bicycles among other things. This was a real blessing to the families as they would be receiving a mode of transportation that would be easier and faster than walking, and cheaper than purchasing and maintaining a horse or donkey.


Here you can you see the fathers of the families lining up to receive a bicycle for their family. It was like Christmas for them as they stood around patiently with beaming faces waiting to get something that they could never afford.

For many families, these bicycles were a better means of travellling to work or a faster means of getting to the nearest doctor in an emergency.




The amazing thing for us was that the adults of the community were just as excited as the little children. Almost nobody had ever ridden a bike before so it was heart warming to see them ride bicycles in the basketball court for the very first time - both adults and children alike. There were some unfortunate spills as the people tried to get accustomed to riding the bicycles, but very quickly they picked up the skill and were soon racing around our delivery trucks in circles!

To be involved in helping out an entire community is a real blessing for us. The fact that something so insignificant to us like a bicycle or a bag of school supplies can mean the world to a family and their child makes us realize how fortunate we were growing up. For us to give back in this way is a very small token of our own gratefulness and we looking forward to bringing more smiles to the children of Pampay as the year goes on. Stay tuned!