Child Aid - Building Brighter Futures

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.

Most teachers in rural Guatemala have received no teacher training (they generally just have the equivalent of a high school degree), so most have never learned how to manage a classroom of 40 or more grade school students. Especially when teachers lack a strong personality, classrooms can resemble Union Station in New York City! Combine this with a lack of books and materials in classrooms, and it’s hardly surprising children find it so difficult to learn to read.

During our teacher training workshops, we always try to include tips and practices of classroom management. Not only do these help us in keeping teachers tuned in, they’ve given teachers ways to implement rules in their own classrooms. One practice that I was recently introduced to for getting students’ attention and getting them to focus is Superbrain Yoga!

In Superbrain Yoga, the idea is to try to get more oxygen to the brain by doing a simple exercise: deep knee bends combined with crossing the arms and holding and massaging the earlobes. It supposedly helps the practitioner activate both sides of their brain for learning, basically supercharging the brain.

Superbrain Yoga admittedly seems to be a wacky way to start a workshop, but who knows? Maybe it works! There is some research out there that indicates that this simple exercise can enable people to be more attentive and active in their learning. Maybe it’s just hocus-pocus. At the very least it is a fun way to start the morning and get people laughing and engaged in the workshops.

Teachers discussing active reading at a teacher training workshop

Teacher Training is a key component of Child Aid’s programs in Guatemala, a country where most rural teachers have only the equivalent of a high school degree. Last week, a teacher approached Elba Arroyo, one of Child Aid’s regional coordinators who was assisting a librarian at the Melotto School, and asked her what is involved in getting teacher training at another school. Like many teachers in Guatemala the teacher works in two different schools at the same time, teaching in the morning at a primary school and in the afternoon at a middle school.

Reading program in action at Melotto School

The teacher told Elba how affective the training has been for her and for her students. She said that she appreciated the tools she was given to promote reading with her students and that her students have asked for reading time everyday since the she began implementing what she learned in the workshops. Considering the fact that most classrooms in rural Guatemala lack story books entirely, this is a huge step. The teacher also commented on how much she appreciates having the library at Melotto; without it, she said, she would not be able to provide storybooks to the kids each day (most of the books in Melotto’s library were donated by supporters of Child Aid).

The teacher told her colleagues in the afternoon school about the response of the students in her morning school (Melotto), and they have been asking how they can participate in the trainings. This is good news for Child Aid on many counts. We certainly believe that our workshops can make a difference in the lives of both teachers and students, but it takes implementation to make that happen. To hear that teachers are telling others about the material and skills they learn, and that other teachers want the same training is tremendously motivating to us.

Teachers at a Child Aid training reading Dora La Exploradora

This actually is not an isolated case. We have had several teachers tell us that colleagues at other schools want the training. The difficulty for us is to decide where and how to expand our workshops in the next year. The strain of resources combined with the hard-to-reach rural locations, and the intensity of the year long training (our training consists of 3 school-wide workshops and six individual follow-up sessions with each teacher) makes it necessary to be very strategic in choosing new schools to work in. We also want to work through local libraries so that the teachers and students have resources to draw upon to implement the workshop materials. 

Another way new teachers are hearing about Child Aid is through university classes. Several of the primary teachers who want to become middle school or high school teachers take university classes in the evenings or weekends. We have had two of these teachers tell us that they have made presentations in their classes about the reading promotion techniques they have learned in our workshops. They have told us that other students have asked if we could come to the class and do our workshop for them.

We are always thrilled to hear of new inquiries about the workshops, but what really motivates us is hearing how the children are responding to the materials. The same teacher that asked Elba if we could work with her other school told Elba that her own daughter has now sparked an interest in reading (she is a student at Melotto, but in another class). She talks almost daily about the stories she is reading and has even begun bringing books home to read. None of this would have been possible a few years ago. Because Child Aid supporters have made it possible for us to invest time, money and resources in the Melotto school over the last several years, change is taking place and children and teachers are developing skills they did not have before – and these make a huge difference in their lives.

Guatemala is a country with 22 distinct languages. Some think that the Maya languages are closely related and that they share many of the same words. The reality is that there are more Spanish words in common than shared Maya words.

Carlos Pos Ben, a native Kakchiquel speaker, reads to a class in Spanish while the teacher translates into Tz’utujil

Child Aid works in regions where different Maya languages are spoken. In the Lake Atitlán region part of the villages speak Kakchiquel (Kaqchiquel), while another portion speak Tz’utujil, and another K’iche. In the rural areas the children learn their mother tongue at home and then begin to learn Spanish while they are in school. The first few years are hard for them, the teachers begin teaching everything in their home language, as they graduate to higher grades the teachers use more and more Spanish. By the fourth grade all classes are typically taught in Spanish. While they do well in school, it is still obvious that their first language is not Spanish in that their vocabulary is limited. Reading can make a difference. Through books the students are exposed to more words, and the words they hear are reinforced by words they read. Furthermore, they can take their time in understanding the context of how the words are used. One school director told me that students whose first language is not Spanish do not do as well in high school because their vocabulary is typically not well developed. However, she told me, that by reading more, they can do very well.

Guatemala’s multiple languages present both challenges and great opportunities for us. Our regional coordinator in the lake region, Carlos Pos Ben, speaks Kakquichel, while people in the community of Tzanchaj, which we’ve partnered with, speak Tz’ utujil. When Carlos is working with the teachers and students of the first three grades, he relies heavily on assistance from the teachers. Carlos and the local teacher read a story “tag-team” style. The teacher will interject with Tz’ utujil words when he realizes that the students won’t understand something. In this way, the students get further exposure to books, their mother language is reaffirmed, and the kids can enjoy the book instead of be frustrated by not understanding what is going on.

The teachers in the Tzanchaj school are grateful for Child Aid’s assistance. One teacher told me that it is difficult for him to read a story by himself and keep the attention of the kids because he tries to translate the whole book. He said Carlos’ assistance makes it easier for him and more fun for the kids.