A Perfect Score
“The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. … Intelligence plus character—that is the goal of true education.”
- Martin Luther King Jr.
Do you remember your favorite teachers? I certainly still do.
Since the earliest days of Story International (back when we even had a different name: “MTC”), we’ve made a quality education one of our primary goals in the fight against cyclical poverty.
The very first program we ran in Huehuetenango was a bilingual Christian elementary school, the “School of Hope,” which ran for about ~8 years before other programming shifts and the harsh realities of the pandemic made it no longer viable.
Some of you probably remember the earliest days of the School of Hope, with its cinder block walls, grassy courtyard, and “rustic” (is it okay to call old tires half-buried in the ground “rustic”?) playground. You may even know someone who taught there or sponsored a student!
For years, we were able to provide high quality education that not only met the requirements of the Guatemalan ministry of education for basic subjects like math, reading, social studies, etc, but also gave hundreds of hours of English classes to many underprivileged students and eventually even some community kids whose parents saw the value in a bilingual education.
Why education though?
The Doors of Opportunity
Guatemala is FULL of intelligent people (like every country on earth!). Despite the lack of access to formal education that prevents many from finishing (or even attending) school, Guatemalans are resilient, resourceful, creative, and industrious.
Back when I taught at the School of Hope, I had one student who spent much of his childhood selling fried chicken in a market and selling snacks on buses. After a series of circumstances landed him in Huehuetenango and he was able to start going to the School of Hope, he quickly became trilingual (He speaks Q'anjob'al (an indigenous Mayan language), Spanish, and English), and went on to learn other languages, too!
All he needed was the opportunity.
The first necessary and vital door of opportunity that so many need in Guatemala is affordable, quality education.
Yet even in the cheapest public schools, students are asked to bring or pay for things like firewood, chairs, journals, etc… For a family that is already just scraping by, these very simple resources can be out of reach.
And if they can’t go through this door of opportunity, the next door—employment—-remains closed as well. After all, many of the jobs that pay a more reasonable salary require students to have a diploma or even some level of university education.
So, the students who can’t afford school miss out on the kinds of jobs that would allow them to send their own kids to school.
And so the cycle of poverty continues…
A Stick in the Spokes
That is of course, unless we can jam a stick in the spokes and “brake” the cycle of poverty.
That’s what we sought to do with the School of Hope. By providing a high quality education for free to students with significant need, they were able to access an education that otherwise would have been completely out of reach.
We also did this by helping make sure that many underprivileged middle- and high-school students (and even some beyond high school) were able to have educational opportunities as well.
All it takes is one child having the access their parents (and maybe even their grandparents and great grandparents) didn’t to break the cycles of generational poverty.
And with poverty being the number one factor leading to family separations in Guatemala, we know it’s worth it to continue investing in the educational well-being of the children we support in our family preservation program.
A Perfect Score
From day 1 to day ~4,000 of serving the community of Huehuetenango, educational support remains the longest-standing anti-poverty/family preservation strategy our team focuses on in their day-to-day work serving vulnerable families.
While we don’t currently run a school, we’re still able to provide free access to educational resources, free tutoring, and free lunch.
These resources have been invaluable for children in our family preservation program, and with our tutor Mercedes guiding many of them, these kids are discovering more and more of what they’re capable of.
In the 2023 Guatemalan school cycle (which usually starts in January), we had 26 students receiving educational support.
Guess how many passed their grade this year?
26!!!
By the grace of God, their hard work, and some much needed educational support, EVERY SINGLE STUDENT in our family preservation program passed their grade this year! 100% of them!
This is a huge accomplishment, and shows just how capable these kids are when they have access to the support they need. Even if their mother can’t read, they don’t have access to a computer, or they can’t afford school supplies, they can still keep up with the rest of their classmates!
Thousands of hours of teaching and thousands of free snacks and lunches can and are changing lives! Thank you to all of you who are making this possible with your generous giving!