AARP’s ‘The Girlfriend’ Honors Child Aid CEO

Nancy Press, founder and CEO of Child Aid, drinks a steaming cup of coffee in the shadow of Volcan Agua, the sputtering, puffing live volcano that stands sentry over Antigua, Guatemala. “Many people get into international nonprofit work because they are romanced by the culture,” she says. “They think they’ll understand it one day, but they never will fully. That’s why Child Aid approaches our work in Guatemala with humility, respect and strong investment in local leadership.” Press takes another sip of coffee. “And we always expect to be surprised,” she laughs. A trained anthropologist and professor emerita at Oregon Health and Science University in Portland, Oregon, Press cofounded Child Aid, a literacy organization, in 1988 and left academia to become CEO in 2013. Learned lessons from her work as an anthropologist inform the ethos of the organization: Talent is distributed equally across the globe, but opportunity is not. For Press, access to education is a matter of social justice, and Guatemala, a nation with one of the highest illiteracy rates and most profound income gaps in the Western Hemisphere, was a natural place to make a start. “I’m in awe of the resilience of the indigenous Maya people we work with,” says Press. “To survive a brutal 36-year civil war and genocide, and to emerge from that experience so energized and hungry for a good education for their children is humbling to me.” Under Press’s leadership, Child Aid has helped nearly 100,000 elementary-age children learn to read and write. Currently, the organization has worked in 252 Guatemalan elementary schools, trained more than 2,400 teachers and delivered 721,000 high-quality books to children. And during the pandemic, when children and their families suffered a catastrophic hunger crisis, Press led efforts to provide nearly 3 million meals to hungry families.