It’s evening in a small tienda in the town of El Sitio, Guatemala, and Marí Hemelda Gomez and her daughters huddle together in a back room, perched on stools and reading in the shadow of a wall hung heavy with pots and pans.[/caption] Each night before bed this family reads together, pausing only to help […] Continue Reading
Student Stories
Educating the Kickball Kid
“German can’t kick!” The children stood around professor Marco Venicio Sela Girón and stared. The jostling class, normally frenetic with movement, stood still. Nearly thirty elementary-age kids had gathered on the dusty playground at the Rafael Téllez García Elementary School in Sololá, Guatemala, to learn to play kickball and run in the sunshine. Even German. […] Continue Reading
VIDEO: Josué Shares his Favorite Book
Seven-year-old Josué likes to read and have fun with books. He has a favorite he wants to share with you. It’s a classic: “Giraffe’s Can’t Dance.” Child Aid partners with schools in Guatemala to help kids like Josué become lifetime readers and learners. We stock classroom shelves with colorful, engaging books, train teachers in literacy […] Continue Reading
Finding New Friends in the Pages of a Book
Josué Cluis, 7, can’t decide which character in his favorite storybooks he would most like to be if he could transform himself. The boy with twinkly brown eyes concentrates hard before answering. “A dog maybe … or a giraffe,” he laughs. “I read a book about a giraffe who couldn’t dance.” Josué smiles as he […] Continue Reading
Board Members Visit Rural Communities
By: John Kin, Child Aid Board Member Judging by the looks of surprise we got along the way, it’s probably not every day that a couple of pickup trucks filled with Americans comes bumping along through the back roads of Guatemala. I was traveling with a group of Child Aid board members and supporters to […] Continue Reading
Against Odds, Elsa is Closer to her Dream
Like many Mayan children in rural Guatemala, Elsa Marina (age 10) lives in a house with a dirt floor and corrugated metal walls. To get to her tiny school, she walks along a narrow, muddy path that passes a dozen or so ramshackle homes like her own. Her parents were refugees from Guatemala’s 36-year civil […] Continue Reading
Children Carry Books Where Cars Can’t Go
Tropical Storm Agatha destroyed the dirt road to Chuialajquiajquix, but it didn’t stop the books from getting through. The village, which is as hard to reach as it is to pronounce, lies in a remote region of Guatemala, near the highland town of Santa Lucía Utatlán. It is accessible only by a steep, treacherous road. […] Continue Reading