Child Aid - Building Brighter Futures

A year ago, if you took a bus out to the indigenous village of Godinez, high above Lake Atitlán in Guatemala, you’d have found an elementary school devoid of books. It’s hard to imagine a school without books, but it’s true – and not just in Godinez. It’s a reality in rural communities throughout the country. No wonder Mayan children face such difficulties learning to read.

A teacher in Godinez, Guatemala, holds up the only book she has in her classroom.

In 2010, we launched our Books to Villages program to address this problem. Through the program, we deliver rotating boxes of children’s books – by car, motorcycle or truck – to our remotest partner communities. Then we distribute them to classrooms and help teachers set up lending and reading programs.

This year, we expanded the program to Godinez. As in other communities, it’s been a huge success. Now, not only are children taking books home, they’re reading out loud to their parents and siblings. Graciela Sajbochol, the Child Aid literacy trainer who works in Godinez, told us that the kids are even using techniques that they learned in Child Aid’s classroom literacy sessions.

“They read the story once,” Graciela told us, “and then they read it again, but change some important detail. Then their families have to catch the mistake. It’s a simple comprehension exercise that they’re repeating at home. It’s wonderful to see.”

Through innovative and imaginative programs, Child Aid and its supporters are helping indigenous children learn to read and get the education they deserve.

As always, thanks for helping make these programs a reality!

Child Aid Literacy Trainer, Graciela Sajbochol, reads aloud to children in Godinez, Guatemala.

This week is National Library Week! To celebrate, help Child Aid create better libraries for some of Guatemala’s poorest children.

In the United States, it’s easy to take libraries for granted. They are free, welcoming public spaces where children can learn, study, and of course, borrow great books. Many libraries offer free classes and homework help, provide community resources, host author readings and advertise local events. Imagine your community without a library.

Kids reading new books in the library Child Aid helped create in the town of Las Canoas. Thanks to our donors we helped the community build new shelving and furniture.

In most rural impoverished villages in Guatemala, libraries are extremely rare and high-quality educational resources are even less common. Child Aid works to change this. We help indigenous communities create libraries that provide access to books and reading programs for local children. Child Aid stocks these libraries with new children’s books and helps librarians establish after-school and summer reading programs. With these new opportunities children finally have access to the resources and materials that will help them advance educationally. In a country where most Mayan children drop out of school by 3rd grade, these opportunities can be the stepping stones needed to escape a life of poverty.

How can you celebrate National Library Week?

Donate to Child Aid. We will use your gift to bring libraries to rural Guatemalan towns for the first time ever.

Give a gift to Child Aid in honor of the librarian in your life, and we will send a tribute card.

With the New Year well upon us, we want to pause and thank you for everything you helped us achieve in 2010.  Last year, we served more children than ever before. In Guatemala, 7,414 kids from 26 communities participated in Child Aid literacy programs and, in Mexico, we treated and/or tested more than 2,600 impoverished children for hearing loss. 

Children in a remote classroom near Santa Lucía Utatlán, Guatemala, show off the new books they received through Child Aid’s Mobile Book Box program. These are the first usable books their classroom has had.

Thanks to generous donations from several US book publishers, we shipped more Spanish-language children’s books to Guatemala in 2010 than in any year in Child Aid’s history – 83,000 in all. Remote libraries and schools in over 50 towns and villages have already received books, and we plan to distribute the remaining materials throughout the first half of 2011. Through Child Aid’s Reading for Life literacy program, we ensure they are used regularly by children in their homes and as part of Child Aid reading programs.

Many of our supporters chipped in last year when they heard the the story about Xojolá, the remote indigenous community where teachers asked us to bring Reading for Life to their village.  By the end of 2010 we raised $18,000 for the community and began work on the library immediately.  We delivered hundreds of children’s books and will soon start literacy training for a new librarian and 21 local teachers. Our work in Xojolá is going extremely well. Check back soon for updates.

These are only a few of our accomplishments from last year. We couldn’t have done this without your support.

For the past 12 years, beginning when he retired from his teaching position at a local school in Tecpán, Guatemala, Don Ramón has been doing everything he can to make his local library a better resource for children. Year after year, he requested help from the mayor’s office. He pounded on embassy doors in Guatemala City. He handwrote letters to international organizations and asked local residents to donate any books they had.

Each year, Don Ramón accomplished a little more: a bigger room, a set of encyclopedias, a new shelf. But after more than a decade of hard work, he still lacked one key ingredient: books for children.

Don Ramón, inside the library he helped bring to Tecpán.

That changed in 2010, after Child Aid met with Don Ramón and local teachers, and agreed to begin Child Aid’s Reading for Life program in Tecpán. We provided hundreds of children’s books for the library and hired a local carpenter to build colorful wooden furniture so the children had a place to sit and read. We provided training for the two librarians and helped them start story hours for the children. We also provided literacy training to 34 local teachers – most of whom had never stepped foot in the library.

Books, physical improvements and training are the key components of Reading for Life. The fourth is people like Don Ramón, who exemplifies our belief that people – not projects – are the best way to affect lasting change.

By working with Don Ramón to promote and improve the library, and by training local teachers and librarians, we help ensure local commitment to literacy. The result is more teachers reading to children, more children in the library, and more kids reading books. In the country with the lowest literacy rates in Latin America, that’s the result we want.

Guatemala has the lowest literacy rate in Latin America and for indigenous women, the situation is even worse: As many as 75% of the women in the communities where we work cannot read or write. Child Aid is working to change this by developing partnerships with schools like Socorro de Belen.

These young women will be the first in their communities to from graduate high school.

Socorro, where Child Aid has been working for many years, trains young indigenous women from rural villages to be primary school teachers so they can bring literacy to their communities. (See blog posting for previous story on Socorro). The high school aged students come from nearly all of Guatemala’s 21 states and together speak at least 10 indigenous languages. For many of these young women, they are the first in their communities to finish high school and they will return to their towns with a teaching certificate.

Since we began working with Socorro, we replaced the library’s outdated, musty books with new storybooks, reference and text books. We helped the librarian catalogue the entire inventory and students are now able to borrow books through the lending program we helped them establish.

Learning to read will change this young woman’s life.

“Many of these young women had never read a book in its entirety before,” says Norman Guzman, Child Aid’s regional coordinator. “Now they read just for fun. One student says she can’t go to sleep without reading and is currently finishing the fifth book of the Harry Potter series.” (The books, in Spanish, were donated by Child Aid.)

These young women are beating the odds in Guatemala. They are multilingual and becoming the first in their families to graduate high school. They are developing a love of reading which they can pass on to children in their communities when they return as teachers. With continued support from Child Aid’s donors, even more young women will return to their home towns as motivated educators of literacy.

Last week, Portland-based author Ann Cameron visited Socorro de Belen, a school in Antigua, Guatemala, where Child Aid has been working for many years. Socorro is a school for young indigenous women training to become teachers. Norma Guzman, a Child Aid literacy trainer, coordinated the visit because she has used Ann Cameron’s books with her students. Needless to say, the students at Socorro were thrilled to have this opportunity.

For many of the students, Ann’s book Colibri, was the first novel they had ever read. Many of the young women were amazed by accuracy of the book and enthusiastic to read a book about their own country. According to Norma, their interest in this novel and participation in Child Aid’s programs has inspired many to become avid readers. One young woman expressed that she is now on her 11th book of the year.

In Guatemala, where quality children’s and young adult’s books are nearly impossible to find, the impact Ann’s books, combined with our programs, is immeasurable. Thanks to our outstanding trainer, Norma, for arranging this visit and to Ann for all she is doing to help the youth of Guatemala become readers for life.

Ann has written several award-winning Spanish language books for children and young adults. The book that Norma uses, Colibri (Hummingbird), is a contemporary adventure story of a young Mayan girl and is set in Guatemala, where Ann lived for over 20 years.

To purchase Ann’s books, available in Spanish and English, click here.

Greetings from Guatemala!

What a difference time, training and leadership makes.

A few years ago the library in Tzumpango, Guatemala was much like any municipal library in the country. It had a few well-guarded books and almost no children’s books. Lending practices were restricted to approved teachers and for students only under very strict guidelines. In other words, few books were ever accessible for children to read.

Things are different now.

After three years of Child Aid trainings, head librarian Yolanda Taquiej has made tremendous changes.

Yolanda, the community’s librarian, in front of the newly renovated children’s library.

Yolanda’s first goal was to bring books to children by creating a lending program. Child Aid donated over 150 new Spanish-language story books and she began making a full inventory of their collection by cataloging the books using the Dewey Decimal System. Then she began loaning books, a practice which is practically non-existent in Guatemala. The library now loans out around 175 books a month, and has not lost a single book! Yolanda also implemented Child Aid’s Hour of Reading program to promote better reading skills for the community’s children. This year a small group of students have been coming to the library once a week to read a book together.

She asked for the Mayor’s approval to renovate a small community building to be used as a Rincón Infantil (Children’s Corner). The Mayor agreed and the community cleaned and painted the building, repaired the roof, and set up bookshelves. The community is inaugurating the space by implementing Child Aid’s Adventures in Reading, a school-year break program that helps children develop better reading skills. Thirty kids now participate in this program every day.

Child Aid trainer works with librarian sorting new books.

When Yolanda began working in the library there were about 50 users a day. Now over 200 users come to the library every day to read books and to participate in Child Aid’s reading programs. These are huge strides in a community that just a few years ago had an inaccessible library and no literacy programs.

This is a great example of how committed individuals in a community can create better learning opportunities for their children when given support, resources and materials they need. Thanks to Child Aid’s donors for helping make this possible for Tzumpango and many other communities.

This Saturday, November 20th, join Child Aid by observing Universal Children’s Day. This commemoration marks the day on which the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Declaration of the Rights of the Child in 1959 and the Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1989. This convention remains the most widely ratified human rights treaty in the world, signed by 193 states. It promotes the rights and general well-being of children all over the world, including “the right of the child to education” and urges countries to “encourage the production and dissemination of children’s books.”

Read the entire convention here (Right Click to Download PDF Version)

Despite this world-wide acknowledgment of the importance of children, they remain one of the most vulnerable populations. Many live in extreme poverty without access to the most basic services, including education. Guatemala is no exception. In Guatemala, most children are born into poverty and the country has the lowest literacy rate in Latin America. This is why Child Aid is dedicated to expanding educational opportunity for children as a means to alleviate poverty in Guatemala. Our literacy programs reach thousands of indigenous Guatemalan children who lack access to books and libraries. With your support we can help many more. Please take this day to reflect with us on the importance of children in your life and how you might help those children less fortunate. Your support can transform lives.

Donate Here.

Dee and Lee Carlson, La Conner Rotary Club members, help unpack and sort books before a delivery.

This year, the Rotary Club of La Conner, Washington helped raise funds for Child Aid so we could send 53,000 children’s books to Guatemala, and distribute them to over 60 rural communities. Once the books arrived in Guatemala, a group of Rotary volunteers from the La Conner club traveled to the country to help with sorting and cataloging in one of the communities that received books. Here are few pictures of the volunteers unloading books and some of the first kids to read them!

Children in Patzicia reading newly delivered books.

We’re able reach as many kids and communities as we do because of generous support from groups and organizations in the U.S. Huge thanks to La Conner Rotary! The club is helping us bring Spanish-language books to well over 10,000 children who never before had access to quality reading materials.

Bobbi Krebs-McMullen helps with the enormous task of organizing thousands of books that will make their way to communities in need.

Today is World Literacy Day, and 350 children in Xojolá need your help.

A typical home in Xojolá, Guatemala

Last week, a representative from Xojolá, a tiny K’iche’ community in the Guatemalan Highlands, approached Child Aid for the fourth time this year. He explained the situation again:

They have no library. Their tiny school is completely devoid of reading material. Books are impossible to obtain. The teachers want to learn the teaching techniques that Child Aid has provided to neighboring communities. Even the children who make it to sixth grade lack the academic base they need to succeed in the middle school located an hour’s walk away.

A handwritten petition for Child Aid’s support, signed and fingerprinted by Xojolá‘s teachers, its mayor and several community leaders.

The photo you see at right is a handwritten petition, signed and fingerprinted by the village’s teachers, its mayor and its community leaders. The town has cleared a small building and designated it as a library. Now they just need Child Aid’s support - and you.

The commitment and drive that we’ve seen from people in Xojolá is precisely what we look for when partnering with a community. We do not want to let this opportunity - these bright young children - fall by the wayside. But we need your help.

Here’s the situation: Child Aid must raise an additional $18,000 to bring Reading for Life to Xojolá. As soon as we raise it, we will:

• Help Xojolá create a community library.
• Stock the new library with quality children’s books.
• Help the town hire and train a librarian.
• Help the librarian start reading programs for Xojolá‘s children.
• Provide ongoing literacy training to the village’s 14 teachers.
• Provide books and teaching materials for the teachers in Xojolá.

Again, we can only do this with your support. Please donate to Child Aid today so we can help the community of Xojolá build brighter futures for its children.

Thank you for your help!

Sam Hendricks
Executive Director

Xojolá‘s mayor and several teachers stand outside the building they hope becomes the community’s first library.

A teacher from Xojolá takes a Child Aid staff librarian to the community to meet with other teachers.