At five and seven years old, Joselyn and Karen Guarchaj already face the possible reality of living their lives in 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 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.