Child Aid - Building Brighter Futures

OK, we’ve been blogging about Child Aid for about three months now, and I can’t help myself from asking … What do you think about the blog?

Is it giving you a better sense of the day-to-day work we’re doing? Is there anything we’re missing, things you’d like us to tell you about that we’re not? Is there any way we can improve it? Anything you absolutely love about it and have been dying to tell us?

As Groucho said, “Outside of a dog, a book is a man’s best friend. Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read.”

Lago Atitlán, sin olas!

Viajando el día 20 de abril, hacia la biblioteca de Santiago Atitlán en una Cantón que le denominan Tzanchaj. Para llegar tengo que cruzar el Lago Atitlán, tomando la lancha en el Municipio de Panajachel. Durante el día todo fue muy bien en el desarrollo de nuestra actividad, apoyando al bibliotecario del lugar con forma de orientación y busqueda de tareas por los estudiantes que visitan la biblioteca. Lo complicado fué al momento de regreso. Era 4:30pm, en la ultima lancha, había mucha tumbería aproximadamente de 1 metro de altura y por ser la última lancha habían muchas personas. Las olas eran muy grandes y por el peso de las personas, nos asustamos. Ya cansado durante el día me quedé dormido en la lancha, cuando sentí el chipotazo de agua en la cara, yo personalmente me asusté. Pensé que en ese instante nos estabamos undiendo porque la lancha que normalmente es para 16 personas, en ese instante la lancha se tambaleaba en medio del lago, estuvimos durante 45 minutos sobre el lago y por fin llegamos a Panajachel, Gracias a Dios lo puedo contar aun. Para mí fue una experiencia aunque asustado pero pudimos trabajar con el bibliotecario.
Feliz noche, le estaré enviando otras historias sobre los desafíos que tenemos por realizar nuestro trabajo. Hasta pronto.

Att.-
P.C. Carlos José Pos Ben
Coordinador de Programas para Bibliotecarios, Región Lago Atitlán

(Carlos José is our program coordinator for the Lago Atitlan region in the Guatemalan Highlands. He’s an outstanding librarian and helps Child Aid train other librarians. He works with them on cataloging and basically gets the local libraries we work with functioning in tip top shape. He wrote to the Portland office with this story about his recent trip across Lago Atitlán, which he boated across to get to reach one of the libraries we work with. The boat ride in the morning was fine, but on the return trip they had to endure 3-foot waves and Carlos, at one point, thought the boat was sinking! He truly braves the elements to do his job!)

Chicacao, Guatemala

Blanca standing outside the library with children who are waiting for their turn to go inside

How does she do it?

I am talking about Blanca Esquina, the fiery librarian in Chicacao who works tirelessly to help the children in her community receive an education. The library has more than 1,500 users a month. At times it overflows with students, and many wait outside until there is space available for them to come inside.

More children waiting to use Chicacao’s library, proof of its success in the community!

On top of attending to students in the library, she overseas five students who have received Child Aid scholarships to help when the library is busiest. She visits eight schools every week to promote reading in various classes, she has a weekly program for 14 three- to four-year-olds whose parents bring them to the library to introduce them to reading at an early age. This month, on top of everything else, she even organized a celebration for International Book Day. She has activities planned in the central plaza that will highlight reading, recognize a teacher for promoting reading in the classroom, and even has relay races planned using books to pass between teams of families and teachers.

Blanca loves what she gets to do every day. I asked her where she gets her energy and she responded by telling me that when she goes home she is spent. Her daughter will ask her what she wants for dinner and Blanca replies by saying “I am not hungry, I have been eating books all day”. What a spirit!

One thing that keeps pushing Blanca is the dream to see more kids go to college. She knows that the only way for the children of Chicacao to have a better life is to get an education, and she knows that reading and a well-functioning library is a key to success for these kids.

Inside Chicacao’s community library, which Child Aid donors made possible

Seeing the library brimming with kids, I asked Blanca if there were any developments on getting a bigger space. (The current library, which Child Aid helped Blanca and the library committee create, is already bigger than the original library and has become so popular that even more space is needed!) She told me that several parents are forming a Parent Committee because they see the need for more space and they are going to meet with the mayor to demand he give them property to build a larger library. She says the mayor will ask how they will build it, and her response was, If they get the property, the community and others will come around and build the library themselves. 

Blanca lives a life of fulfilled dreams and knows that the secret to a life well lived is a life given in service to her community. That is what keeps her going.

Kristen Anderson, one of our program coordinators in Guatemala, recently took this photo of a group of elementary school students taking a test. The test was part of a pilot program we’re working on to gauge the success of our reading programs. We see the positive effects of our programs every day, (as do communities throughout rural Guatemala which regularly approach us for help training local teachers and getting books into classrooms). But perfecting our programs requires concrete study, which we’re working on now.

Here’s a report from Kristen, who is developing the pilot program:

Antigua, Guatemala – I recently decided to try to get a gauge on the impact of our reading programs on the schools where we are implementing them vs. the schools where we are not.  I put together an assessment test for students in grades 1-6 to measure three areas: 1) motivation to read, 2) vocabulary and 3) comprehension.  I gave the tests to students in three different schools.  One school, Aguas Escondidas, has not yet received our programs, and will not until next year.  This group will be the control group that we measure the improvement against the other two schools.  The next school, Melotto, has been receiving weekly reading classes for almost 2 years now, and the teachers are now getting training on how to implement these techniques in their classrooms.  Centro America is the third school, and has only been receiving our instruction for one year. 

I gave the tests to 547 students in total and have tabulated the data.  The overall message I got from the results is that, regardless of the school, their motivation to read is high, but their comprehension skills are low.  On a 100 point scale, all the motivation scores were 83% and above.  This indicates to me that there is a large desire on the part of these students to become better readers.  The sad and shocking part was that some classes scored as low as 13% on their comprehension scores.  Guatemala pedagogy focuses on rote memorization.  Children are taught to copy from a blackboard and memorize, but not to engage with content.  When asked a simple question like, “How did the story end?”, I had several students who simply copied the last two lines of the text, which contained no information about the culmination of the story, but was literally how the story ended.  It is clear that there is a strong need for our programs that focus on getting students to engage with text, make predictions, use their imagination, and make associations to their own lives.  Their motivation provides fertile ground for lots of growth.  – Kristen Anderson

Chimaltenango, Guatemala—Today I was working in the Melotto library in Chimaltenango.  We have had a weekly reading program there for about 2 years now.  One of the 6th graders, Oxim (o-SHEEM), has been a regular borrower in our lending program.  It was no surprise to me when she walked into the library during the recess period to look for a new book.  What was a suprise was that she brought along her little sister who is in the 1st grade.  The two of them spent the entire recess period reading books together.  I told Oxim that she was giving her little sister a better gift than any money could buy. 

Great news! Ethical Bean coffee is now available to coffee drinkers in the United States! The Vancouver, BC coffee roaster, owned by Lloyd Bernhardt and Kim Schachte, is a longtime supporter of Child Aid. Every December, for several years now, Ethical Bean has donated $1 for every bag of coffee they sell to Child Aid as part of their month-long “Kids to School” promotion. It’s been a tremendous help to so many children in Guatemala. If you’re in the United States, click over to the Ethical Bean website, click on the Amazon link, and support this generous business by purchasing a two-pound bag of their outstanding, fresh, Fair Trade coffee! Not only will you love the coffee (trust us!), but you’ll be supporting Child Aid’s scholarship program in Guatemala, and a great business, too!

December may be a long way off, but Ethical Bean is worth supporting now. And once December does finally roll around, you’ll be so hooked on their coffee, you’ll automatically participate in the “Kids to School” promo. Then, for every 100 bags of coffee Ethical Bean sells, a child in Guatemala gets a yearlong scholarship. Without these scholarships, most of these children would otherwise not be able to go to school – their families (many of which bring in combined incomes of less than $300/mo) simply cannot afford the hidden costs of school: shoes, uniforms, transportation and materials.

We owe such a huge thanks to Lloyd and Kim and everyone else at Ethical Bean for their wonderful support, and there’s really no better way we can thank them than by steering as many coffee drinkers to their excellent product as possible. So click on over and enjoy what will be the some of the best coffee you’ve ever tasted – you’ll help make difference in the life of a child in the process!

Can you think of an easier way to help out? We can’t!

Elba, the librarian at Pedro Molina, reading to students

I just returned from a quick trip to the Pedro Molina school where I visited the children’s library we support. While I was there, a class from the pre-school on the campus came for their reading hour in the library. Each a week, classes comes to the library to hear a story read to them using the reading techniques we teach to teachers across the country. In the past, our librarian did the reading at these. This time, because the pre-school teachers took our Teacher Training workshop on reading promotion, the director of the school asked if they could do the reading while in the library. The director of the school wants the teachers to develop the skills we teach and was hoping that the librarian we trained would observe and evaluate the teachers while they read to the children in the library.

I was amazed at the quality of reading which incorporated several of the techniques that we teach during our workshop. What was especially thrilling to me was to see how the kids were involved in the story.

Read more »

For those of you in the Portland, Ore. area, here’s a small but interesting event you might want to check out. It’s part of the Witness for Peace Northwest Speaker Tour

NAFTA Turns 15: A Look at Free Trade, Food Security and Migration in Oaxaca, Mexico

Take a deeper look at the effects of NAFTA, including resistance to genetically modified (GMO) corn, the impact of migration on sending communities, and the struggle for food security in Oaxaca’s indigenous communities. A discussion with Baldemar Mendoza Jiménez, Agro-ecologist with the Union of Organizations of the Sierra Juarez, Oaxaca.

Baldemar Mendoza Jimenez is the coordinator of the agro-ecology program for UNOSJO (the Union of Organizations of the Sierra Juarez, Oaxaca).  Sr. Mendoza is an expert on food sovereignty issues and the impacts of free trade agreements on indigenous farmers from Oaxaca.  UNOSJO is an indigenous organization that works with indigenous communities and organizations in the Zapotec region of the Sierra Juárez, located in the state of Oaxaca, Mexico.  UNOSJO has denounced the contamination of native corn in Oaxaca by genetically-modified (GMO) corn and is a leader within Oaxaca on food security issues.  Their efforts also focus on women’s issues, indigenous rights, and organic coffee production. 

Sr. Mendoza will speak about the impacts of NAFTA on indigenous communities in Oaxaca, including:

Details:
Sunday, April 5
12pm, Hillsboro United Methodist Church
168 NE 8th Ave, Hillsboro, OR

For more information, click here or contact Regional Organizer Beth Poteet, .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) or 503.287.7847.