In a remote classroom, K’iché Mayan children hold up books they received through Child Aid’s “Books to Villages” program. Continue Reading
Child Aid News
Teachers in Action
Child Aid: Reading for Life
Remembering Bishop Juan Gerardi
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 […] Continue Reading
How Reading Programs Create Opportunity for a Guatemalan Village
Tzantinamit (sawn-teen-ah-MEET) is a tiny village high above Lake Atitlán, in Guatemala. It’s surrounded by dusty fields, forested peaks and a smattering of small adobe houses in various states of disrepair. When we visited last month, the corn had long been harvested, and the fields were barren. It was cold out, and only a few […] Continue Reading
Village Library Becomes Outpost for Literacy
Rosenda Yac Escún 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 (village), some three miles away. Formerly an elementary schoolteacher, she is now working closely with Child Aid literacy staff to learn the ins and outs […] Continue Reading
Teaching Against the Odds
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, […] Continue Reading
Reading for Life
Lighting the Spark of Literacy
Child Aid & Girls Clubs in Rural Guatemala
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.) […] Continue Reading