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!