http://child-aid.org/building/brighter/futures/blog/ en danny@child-aid.org Copyright 2012 2012-05-09T20:06:50+00:00 http://blog.child-aid.org/child-aid-travel-program/ http://blog.child-aid.org/child-aid-travel-program/#When:19:06:50Z Our first annual Travel with Child Aid trip happens August 5, and there’s only one month left to register. We’d love to have you join us. The registration deadline is June 5, 2012. Designed for those who have made, or are considering making, a significant financial contribution to our literacy program, Travel with Child Aid gives key supporters a week in Guatemala to get to know us in depth. Participants will travel with Child Aid staff to some of our partner communities, where they will see firsthand how our program works. Most importantly, members of the group will be able to directly experience the difference their investment makes in children’s lives. A light volunteer project in a school or library will also give participants the chance to work alongside children and families – those who know best the value literacy brings to their communities. We hope this trip will inspire our most committed supporters to continue their involvement, while giving new donors insight into Reading for Life, a program they will come to know intimately. Our in-country sample itinerary includes:   - Orientation breakfast and walk-through of Antigua   - Visit to Child Aid’s Book Center and a reception with literacy staff   - Guided visits to rural villages in the Central Highlands region   - Demonstrations of our literacy work in remote schools and libraries   - Home visits with local families   - A volunteer activity to benefit a school or library   - Cultural activities like markets and coffee farms   Nuts & Bolts To participate, download our Program Application form and either send it by mail to Child Aid, 917 SW Oak St, Suite 208, Portland, OR 97025, or by email to . Guatemala, Volunteer 2012-05-09T19:06:50+00:00 http://blog.child-aid.org/read-a-thon-makes-difference-for-guatemala/ http://blog.child-aid.org/read-a-thon-makes-difference-for-guatemala/#When:16:03:17Z When fourth-grade teachers Nancy Danforth and Cynthia Scruggs told us their students were reading to raise money for Child Aid, we were thrilled. But we had no idea their students would plow through enough books to raise $3,200. That’s the news they gave us last week. Read-a-thon participants turning pages to support Child Aid’s work in Guatemala. On April 1, fourth-grade students at Saint Louise School, in Bellevue, Washington, embarked on a 30-day read-a-thon to support Child Aid’s literacy work in Guatemala. First, the students gathered pledges from parents and friends, who promised to contribute a small amount for every page the children read. Then the students hit the books. They read at home, on their free time and during several “read-ins” that the teachers organized at school. By the end of the month, the students had read nearly 30,000 pages in all, raising enough money to bring reading programs to more than 60 children in Guatemala for an entire year. Without a doubt, the efforts of Saint Louise’s page-turning fourth-graders will be felt thousands of miles away, by children who face tremendous challenges when it comes to learning to read. We want to send our sincerest thanks to all the fourth-graders at Bellevue for their energy, commitment and hard work. The effort they put into this will make a real difference for children in Guatemala. Our gratitude also goes out to Mrs. Danforth and Mrs. Scruggs for making it happen; to Saint Louise’s principal, Dan Fitzpatrick; and to all the parents and friends who sponsored these young readers. Thank you for your support!  If you are interested in holding a read-a-thon at your school, please contact Marissa White at marissa@child-aid.org, or call us at 503-223-3008. Event, Reading, Volunteer 2012-05-07T16:03:17+00:00 http://blog.child-aid.org/remembering-bishop-juan-gerardi/ http://blog.child-aid.org/remembering-bishop-juan-gerardi/#When:13:41:03Z Bishop Juan Gerardi was a major human rights advocate during Guatemala’s civil war.Although you won’t find anything in the news about it (except passing references in Tulsa World and the Jamaica Observer), today is the 14th anniversary of Bishop Juan Gerardi‘s death. Bishop Gerardi was a major advocate for indigenous people in Guatemala and an ardent proponent of human rights during the country’s bloody civil war. He was killed on April 26, 1998, two days after presenting Guatemala: Nunca Mas (Guatemala: Never Again), which implicated the army through its detailed, eyewitness accounts of atrocities committed during the conflict. Guatemala’s 36-year civil war, which claimed over 200,000 lives, ended in 1996.  If you are interested in learning more about Bishop Gerardi and this period of Guatemalan history, order a copy of Francisco Goldman’s outstanding The Art of Political Murder: Who Killed the Bishop? Books, Guatemala 2012-04-26T13:41:03+00:00 http://blog.child-aid.org/the-color-run-portland/ http://blog.child-aid.org/the-color-run-portland/#When:12:21:07Z Great news! Child Aid is the official nonprofit for The Portland Color Run, “the happiest 5K on the planet”. A portion of profits from The Color Run will go to Child Aid and our Reading for Life program. If you haven’t heard of The Color Run, picture something between the Holi Festival of Colors in India and a 5K run in the U.S. Still can’t imagine it? Watch the video here. The Color Run has been selling out FAST in every city so far, so get your tickets soon. Date: September 29, 2012 Learn more & Register: http://thecolorrun.com/portland/ Volunteer:  Help us spread the color! If you’d like to join the volunteer team for The Color Run, please . It sounds like it will be a lot of fun. Our heartfelt thanks goes to everyone at The Color Run for this exciting opportunity! Event 2012-04-19T12:21:07+00:00 http://blog.child-aid.org/village-library-becomes-outpost-for-literacy/ http://blog.child-aid.org/village-library-becomes-outpost-for-literacy/#When:18:34:38Z Rosenda Yac Escún (pictured) is the new librarian in Xesampual, an indigenous K’iché village in Guatemala’s Central Highlands. Each weekday, she walks 45 minutes to the library from her tiny aldea (settlement), some three miles away. Formerly an elementary schoolteacher, she is now working closely with Child Aid literacy staff to learn the ins and outs of running a community library. Despite its tiny size, Xesampual has had a library for years. But it was rarely open and remained a dark, neglected building with almost no usable books. The books it did have were unsuitable for kids and sat untouched on old shelves collecting dust. No one in the village knew how to run a library. In fact, most adults in Xesampual don’t know how to read. Today, Child Aid is bringing children’s books to this forgotten building and training Ms. Yac not just to run the library, but to turn it into a center of literacy for Xesampual and surrounding communities.  “The trainings have been wonderful,” says Ms. Yac. “I have plans to start reading stories out loud to kids during the week.” In rural Guatemala, children are rarely read to, despite the fact that it is a critical first step in promoting early literacy skills. In a community where most children had never even held a storybook, and where teachers have minimal training in how to engage children in books, daily reading activities such as this can be transformative. So far this year, Ms. Yac has participated in three intensive training workshops, and is learning how to run reading programs that promote the library and the importance of reading within the community. She’s working with local teachers to bring children into the library on a regular basis, and she’ll soon learn how to create a book-lending program so children can take storybooks home to share with their families. Ms. Yac is also helping Child Aid operate its Books to Villages program to get rotating boxes of books to nearby village schools, using Xesampual’s library as a hub. Our ongoing work with Ms. Yac and the library in Xesampual is a perfect example of how we move beyond the build-and-run approach practiced by many nonprofits and government agencies. Instead, we take a multifaceted approach to literacy, one which focuses not just on books, but on training, capacity building and ongoing reading programs for children. Today, 14 outlying communities use the library in Xesampual. Dozens of children, more than ever before, visit every day. Working in some of Latin America’s poorest and remotest communities, Child Aid is creating libraries that are truly outposts for literacy. K'iche', Guatemala, Librarian, Librarian Training, Library 2012-04-11T18:34:38+00:00 http://blog.child-aid.org/teaching-against-the-odds/ http://blog.child-aid.org/teaching-against-the-odds/#When:19:10:50Z Mr. Can (back, right) with his 6th grade students in Chocol, Guatemala.Luis Miguel Can is a sixth-grade teacher in the remote village of Chocol, Guatemala. He grew up in a similarly isolated village in the country’s mountainous Central Highlands. Like the majority of indigenous children in Guatemala, he never had access to books. As a child, Mr. Can struggled his way through a neglected educational system, and, working against the odds, made it all the way through high school. At 18, he became an elementary school teacher. When Mr. Can entered his first classroom as an instructor, he had no idea how to teach or promote reading. The idea of reading aloud to his students or engaging them in a book never even occurred to him. Of course, it hardly would have mattered anyway. He had no books. “Teachers face so many obstacles here,” Mr. Can says. “The main one is lack of books and materials. The smidgen of money we get is for pens and maybe erasers. But never books.” Another teacher in Chocol, a young woman named Olga Maribel Chavez, explains that it wasn’t just the lack of books that made learning to read so hard. “When I was little,” she said “no one placed any importance on reading. To this day, reading is hard for me. I still struggle.” Mr. Can’s and Ms. Chavez’ challenges, both as children who grappled with reading, and now as teachers who struggle to teach it, are commonplace in Guatemala. Most teachers simply never bother to try to teach anything beyond simple phonetics. And without books, resources, training or support, it’s no wonder. Ms. Chavez with students and one of the many books she has received through Child Aid’s Reading for Life program.This year, Child Aid partnered with the school in Chocol and began its Reading for Life program in the village. We delivered dozens of storybooks to each of the school’s six classrooms and began our intensive teacher training program for Chocol’s teachers. Although the teachers are only four months into the program, they already report changes. “I use Child Aid’s techniques all the time,” Mr. Can says. “It has been a wonderful experience, and the kids are really picking up reading. They’re getting it.” Ms. Chavez, who is two years into the program because she taught in a neighboring community, where Child Aid works, has had a similar experience. “The kids never used to want to read,” she says. “Now, even in this tiny school, the kids insist that I read to them. It never was like this.” For Child Aid, literacy is a long-term commitment, one that goes beyond the creation of libraries and delivery of books. While these efforts are critical to our Reading for Life program, we believe that a truly effective, and sustainable, literacy program requires ongoing, practical training for teachers and librarians. “If I had this program when I was a kid,” says Mr. Can, “I would have read every single day.” Girls in Mr. Can’s class listen to their teacher read a story out loud. Prior to Mr. Can’s participation in Child Aid’s Reading for Life program, he struggled to teach reading and his students had no access to storybooks. Guatemala, Teacher Training 2012-04-07T19:10:50+00:00 http://blog.child-aid.org/girls-clubs-in-rural-guatemala/ http://blog.child-aid.org/girls-clubs-in-rural-guatemala/#When:23:21:02Z Today is International Women’s Day, and people everywhere are honoring the political and social achievements women have made throughout the world. We thought this a perfect time to share a few photos of a rural girls club in Guatemala, in a remote village where we recently began working. (See more photos on our Facebook page.) Every week, 30 to 40 indigenous Kaqchikel girls gather in a small building above their village of El Llano and participate in a series of educational sessions lead by a woman named Hermelinda. Working with a unique curriculum developed by the World Population Council of Guatemala, Hermelinda teaches the girls about leadership, self esteem, reproductive rights and other topics that are relevant to the girls in the club. She also reads storybooks to them and tries to foster a love of reading that will help them in school. We recently partnered with World Population Council to provide literacy training to Hermelinda and to help her improve the girls’ reading abilities. We are very excited about this partnership and feel honored to be a part of helping girls in rural Guatemala improve their lives. Guatemala, Kaqchikel, Teacher Training 2012-03-08T23:21:02+00:00 http://blog.child-aid.org/learning-to-read/ http://blog.child-aid.org/learning-to-read/#When:18:33:08Z This is one of our favorite photos around the office. It’s of a boy in Guatemala who is fully engaged in a story his teacher is reading as part of our Reading for Life program. This might seem an ordinary scene for someone who is accustomed to schools in the United States. But in Guatemala, where so few classrooms have books, and where reading aloud is rare, this is a special sight. We hope it brings a little joy to your day. Thanks for helping us bring books and reading programs to so many kids! Guatemala, Reading 2012-02-23T18:33:08+00:00 http://blog.child-aid.org/joint-commitment-to-literacy-pays-off/ http://blog.child-aid.org/joint-commitment-to-literacy-pays-off/#When:21:32:02Z Pasaq, Guatemala – Three years ago, when Child Aid helped Alberta Guarchaj launch a school-break reading program in her village’s new library, fewer than 10 children showed up. Alberta continued to participate in Child Aid’s librarian training sessions, and she tailored the program, known as Adventures in Reading, to fit the needs of her village. Children participating in reading activities during Child Aid’s Adventures in Reading program in Pasaq. The following year, 30 children turned out for the program, and Alberta continued to promote it in her community. Because books were formerly rare in Pasaq, even in the village school, parents began to take interest in the program. Most adults in the village are unable to read and know from experience that literacy has tangible economic benefits. Throughout Guatemala, impoverished parents, especially women, express sadness about their inability to contribute more to their families economically. For most of them, the obstacle is the same: they cannot read.  So parents in Pasaq saw Adventures in Reading as an alternative. The program could help their children avoid the crippling trap of illiteracy. The more time their kids spent in the library, the quicker they were learning to read and the better they performed in school. In 2011, Alberta conducted Adventures in Reading again. But this year, 70 to 100 children crammed into the library each day to listen to the stories she read. They pulled books off the shelves to read to themselves, and they participated in the literacy activities that form the heart of the program. At a recent Child Aid Librarian Training Workshop, Alberta told librarians from other villages about her successes with Adventures in Reading. She described children beginning to read on their own and checking out books to bring home to their families. She talked about improvements children were making in their writing skills, and about parents attending reading sessions with their kids.  And she talked about how the program, combined with Child Aid’s other work in the village, is creating opportunities for her community that never before existed. For Child Aid, the success of Adventures in Reading in Pasaq is another indicator that our program works. Literacy doesn’t happen overnight. It takes long-term commitment and requires flexible programs that communities can adopt and make their own. This year, a total of 21 villages conducted our Adventures in Reading program, engaging thousands of children in reading activities during the three-month school break. Guatemala, Librarian, Reading 2011-12-16T21:32:02+00:00 http://blog.child-aid.org/an-effective-literacy-program-in-action/ http://blog.child-aid.org/an-effective-literacy-program-in-action/#When:19:42:07Z At five and seven years old,  Joselyn and Karen Guarchaj already face the sad possibility of living lives of extreme poverty, just as their family has for generations. But thanks to Child Aid and its supporters, the two sisters also face another possibility: a future in which they know how to read and possess the education they need to lift themselves from poverty. That opportunity is one that their parent’s never had. Joselyn and Karen Guarchaj (at right) are second-year participants in Child Aid’s school-break reading program. Joselyn and Karen are participants in Child Aid’s Reading for Life literacy program. Thanks to the program, they now have a fully stocked library in their village and a full-time librarian, trained by Child Aid. Through the program, all of the teachers in their village are receiving training so that they can learn how to teach reading more effectively. (As throughout Guatemala, most of the teachers in their village are young and have little training beyond what they received in high school.)  Outside of the school year, Joselyn and Karen also have access to a school-break reading program called Adventures in Reading.  Child Aid created this program to keep children engaged in reading activities during Guatemala’s three-month school break. The girls have participated in the program for two years in a row. For Child Aid, improving literacy in a village like Joselyn’s and Karen’s goes far beyond delivering books and creating libraries. We do both of these and know they are critical components of an effective literacy program. But we also know that to truly improve literacy in a community that has never even had books, we must go further. For this reason, we make long-term commitments to the villages where we work. We provide one-on-one training for teachers for a minimum of three years. We help communities identify, hire and train librarians from their own villages so we can foster local investment and ensure that the libraries we help create stay open to children every day. Reading for Life is a multifaceted program and, because of this, it works. Joselyn and Karen could easily have faced a future where illiteracy and poverty were their only paths. But thanks to Reading for Life and Child Aid supporters, there are others.    Before Child Aid brought Reading for Life to their village, these children in Guatemala had no access to books or reading programs. By helping them learn to read and succeed in school, Child Aid provides children opportunity and the hope for a better future. Guatemala, Librarian Training, Library, Reading, Teacher Training 2011-11-15T19:42:07+00:00