The Beginning

As one departs Guatemala City and makes their way towards the Polochic Valley located in the south-eastern edge of Alta Verapaz they will immediately sense a strong transformation in their surroundings.  The hustle of the city is replaced by birds singing and crickets humming; the cool air becomes thick with moisture  and the city's infrastructure dissipates as the mountains take charge of the scene.  To put it simply, it is different world, nothing less than beautiful.

I arrived at my destination just over a week ago in the heart of the valley in a small pueblo known as Nueva Mercedes where since then I have been spending a majority of my time at the local primary school, representing the organization Li'Chu Tam, a recently founded NGO in the region.  Following in the footsteps of other volunteers from years past, my partner Michal (who arrived 3 weeks prior) and myself are kicking-off the 2013 school year as assistants in the classrooms, as well as continuing last year's volunteers (David Kando and Caleb Winshop) IT- after-school program.  As we continue to experiment with the projects of the past, we also hope to develop new ones we find to be of importance.  To start, I am in the midst of putting together a paper-mache class, while Michal is focusing on creating an after-school reading program.

My initial thoughts of the school were a mixture.  Having experience in working in a number of settings with children, the kids I encountered here in Mercedes in regards to behavior were no different than those I have been so fortunate to work with in years prior.  Many wanted to know my name right away and preferred a hug over a handshake, and some, too shy to say hello or introduce themselves, tucked their face behind their hands concealing involuntary smiles.  It wasn't until after introductions were over that I began to really observe the setting of the school.  The classrooms are bare, lacking decoration, and resources.  Most of the children sit on benches, crammed next to their classmates.  Each child has his/her materials, which consist of 2-3 notebooks for different subjects and a couple writing utensils.  There are no textbooks or paper handouts to help assist in the childrens' education, just a dry-erase board at the head of each of the rooms that the teacher uses diligently   Nonetheless, the majority of the students are extremely eager to learn and share their hard work with the teachers and us volunteers.

Throughout the school day I have thoroughly enjoyed visiting the different classrooms to observe the different age groups with their respective level of learning as well as getting to know the six teachers.  During specific tasks, whether it be practicing penmanship in first grade, or translating Mayan numerals in the fifth grade, I am able to work with children one-on-one or in small groups, which is of mutual benefit as they get to be further challenged by questions I pose, and I get to learn some basic words in Queq'chi.  For example, I have heard the word "mach" hundreds of times whispered and shouted in response to my larger-than-average beard.

The IT-after-school classes are starting to take off and gain popularity, regardless of the equipment issue we are handling.  With two functioning computers we have been giving basic typing lessons using a simple software as well as basic word processor.  It is proving to be an extension of the school day  practicing reading and writing, sharing ideas, and telling stories all the while laughing and getting to know one another.

There is an immense amount of work to be done here in Nueva Mercedes.  I'm looking forward to it all and can say that I am thrilled to be apart of the Li'Chu Tam team.

--Andrew Ross

Li Ch’utam: Coming Together to Create Solutions

During the 21 years that Caleb Winship and myself (David Kando) have spent on this Earth we have always been very “different”…. It might have something to do with the fact that we have traveled or worked in 27 countries including every continent except Antarctica and Australia. Since we met at Northeastern University 4 years ago, we have helped build schools in the Dominican Republic with a grass roots student run NGO, worked with multinational sustainable development organizations like the Deshpande Foundation and Northeastern’s own Social Enterprise Institute, studied Spanish and International Business in Spain and Mexico, and been given the opportunity to create our own internships by the school’s international co-op department. We are part of a well-respected International Business program where in our graduating class of 2013 over 30 students chose a sister-school in Spain and 3 of us chose the sister-school in Mexico (Caleb, myself, and 1 peer.) Caleb and I specifically chose to be in Latin America to work in sustainable development and encounter opportunities like the one we’ve shared with Li Ch’utam during our last 6 months in Alta Verapaz, Guatemala. More specifically for all the lovely Guatemalan people reading this: 4 hours from the capital in microbus to Coban, 4 more hours to La Tinta, quick bus to Teleman, then a 10 minute ride in the back of a pickup to Nueva Mercedes. Purrrroooo Poloochic…..

I don’t think it came as any surprise to our University when we told them we were going to Guatemala to live in a tropical rainforest for 6 months. Nor when we added that our house would be in a community of plantations where the average 15 year old has 2 children and the majority of children enter the work force at 14, unable to read or write Spanish with their 6^th grade education.  Not only were they not surprised, they were extremely generous with scholarships and marketing Li Ch’utam’s efforts in the United States.

 It was Guatemalans that were surprised when Caleb and I explained what Li Ch’utam was, where we would be working, and what we would be doing for the next 6 months. From the official meetings with politicians and businesswo/men in the city and less official conversations on 8 hour bus rides through hills and valleys of beautiful Guatemala no one was betting that they would see our faces again apart from that first conversation. To their surprise, “the two gringos from the Polochic” showed up like clockwork every first of the month in the city to relate the latest and greatest news from Li Ch’utam in the Polochic Valley and see how the urban reform projects by government and private businesses groups were progressing and when the next collaborations between the pueblo and the city would be taking place. We began by relating our horror stories of the local rural education systems over lunch with the who’s who in national educational reform. As the months went by we stopped losing time in the negatives that everyone had been talking about for years and started to talk with people like Campus Tec, Ashoka, the Pirate Party, and the U.S. state department about real solutions to these problems and different steps we had taken at Li Ch’utam to address grave issues in the rural education systems.

Li Ch’utam itself is a blessing to the Q’eqchi people who live in the Polochic among a sea of foreign owned super-plantations and cash crops.  Of all the corporations and wealthy foreign and central American families that own land in the valley, the majority don’t care very much about their workers or their worker’s kids (future employees.)  In fact, most owners just visit their plantations once in a blue moon to see the money machine ticking away and then they whisk away their families to some giant house in a more relaxed climate with a better school system. This is where one very special family of German plantation owners and Li Ch’utam steps into the picture. 

Hugo Droege came to Guatemala before World War 2 in search of a better life for his family. Not your typical modern plantation owner, Hugo was known for carrying just his safari hat and walking stick around the uninhabited jungle chopping down piece by piece of dense rainforest with his team of workers he convinced to come from various corners of the country. Speaking the local Mayan Q’eqchi language and being in the field with his workers every day Hugo is a legend in the area for his kindness, work ethic, and his ability to build a business that his children would come to run for generations.  The Droeges are famous for always living in the Polochic in the same rainforest as their workers (no doubt the houses are built to slightly different specifications, but the Droeges by no means live like the other plantation owners of the area) and having their children grow up alongside the children of the Q’eqchi people who work the fields. This relationship between the children is where Li Ch’utam all began some 25 years ago with our boss Henning Droege (grandson of Hugo.) Henning was a smart, dynamic child who could balance a spreadsheet and navigate a horse through a densely forested hillside…probably at the same time.  All of his friends would run through the jungle with him and play with the animals and spend hours talking to Henning about dreams and the future. And this is where Henning started to notice that his future was destined for other things than that of his peers. At 12 years old, Henning was dreaming of a life of airplane rides to Europe, a multinational education, and a future as a diplomat. His peers were looking to finish their education in the next 3 years, start working the fields, and making a family next door to the house they grew up in. Memories of these drastic differences in education and opportunity never left Henning even as he achieved his dreams of being a diplomat and studying in prestigious European Universities.  Now a young adult, he rallied behind the pre-existing organization and goodwill of the Droeges and decided to create Li Ch’utam. A sustainable development organization that provides diverse education and work opportunities for the youth of the Polochic Valley. Li Ch’utam not only provides opportunities to a group of people living in the Polochic Valley, it is addressing serious issues that exist in communities and on plantations world-wide.

Technological advancements eliminate jobs on plantations each year with more and more man-power being converted to machines and more efficient strategies. This poses a serious threat to families that have on average 7 children. Out of these 7 kids, it’s rare that 1 will learn to read and write and find work outside of the valley. If every family has 7 kids, and less and less jobs are required on the plantation every year, and no one can find work elsewhere because they can’t read or write….you can see where a problem might arise concerning future local job opportunities.

For the last 6 months, Li Ch’utam has provided support to any child who needs help with homework and can’t find support in the household. We have the first public library in town which is open to any child or adult. You would never know how useful an atlas could be until someone who asks you, “What’s Mexico”…and when you reply, “It’s a country close by.”…they say, “What’s a county?” This is even scarier when the person asking is 1 of 3 lucky kids in the whole community who is enrolled in middle school, the other 30 having already ended their education.  We offer computer classes and typing courses which 18 youth took part in. Many of these 8-13 year olds couldn’t recite you the alphabet 6 months ago. After a few months of typing lessons, with the keys completely covered they can not only type flawlessly, they average 12 words per minute. One 13 year old is training to be the first local Li Ch’utam volunteer: he can type at 35 words per minute, cooks meals for the other kids, takes care of the garden, gives typing classes, and teaches the other students Math, Science, and Geography with Encarta Encyclopedia. He’s been out of school for the last 2 years, he never met his parents, and his grandparents don’t have the money to send him to 7^th grade. Kids like this have a mountain of potential and no one to lend a hand to meet them halfway. Li Ch’utam is here for them and is proud to offer people like this a chance to learn more about the opportunities that surround them. Lucky for him, he will receive our first scholarship, and with a little luck and a lot hard work Li Ch’utam will grow to offer more and more opportunities to those willing to put in the time and effort for a future not reliant on the plantation. 

Contact info@lichutam.org for any requests for more information, for collaboration or job opportunities, or to inquire how you can help our scholarship fund with monetary or technological        donations.

New Computers Arrive

Lichutam’s computer literacy program has now been running for close to four months. Students attend classes each day focusing primarily on typing as well as other basic computer functions. The classes also entail a creative aspect in the use of cameras and video cameras in order for the students to express themselves and learn how to use digital cameras and video equipment in conjunction with the computers with which they have become so well acquainted. 

  

            Two weeks ago a generous donor promised us two laptops in perfect condition. I am happy to announce that a few days later they were successfully delivered to the Polochic Valley and we are now running our classes with six functioning laptops. This is a great success both for Lichutam and the computer literacy program itself. We can now accommodate more students at once. Lessons can be held with more students at a time which frees up more time in the afternoon for other programs like art, cooking class, gardening, and sports.

            The students are very excited about the new computers and each day everyone rushes to class in hopes of arriving first and getting their chance to try out the new laptops. As one student remarked, “They are the prettiest machines.” I could not agree more. The average student is now typing between ten and fifteen words a minute. Typing is now a fun and easy activity for the majority of students. This morning, one student, Elmer, was explaining to me how he now wants to learn how to use many computer programs. He is driven to continue learning more about computers and how to use computer programs with hopes of one day working with computers professionally. He even inspired his family to purchase a home computer which he described to me with pride. 

            The dreams of Elmer are the dreams of Lichutam. It is not to force all forms of 21^st century life into this culture but rather to put the advancements of the developed world into the hands of these people in order for them to do as they please. Many indigenous peoples have been trampled by development, but as minor successes from Lichtuam’s programs continue to build, we are confident that the people of the Polochic Valley will be in control of their own development to gain from its advantages and continue on their way to a bright future.

One Seed at a Time

One of the several programs we have been working on the past months in the Polochic valley is gardening. While the earth here is quite fertile and the tropical climate allows for the easy growing of plants all year round, the gardening of vegetables is not a common practice. This mostly stems from the lack of education on nutrition and the dietary value of vegetables. The gardening project aims to educate the youth of Nueva mercedes in a fun and interactive way that helps to tackle the lack of nutritional education.

We have planted a small garden in front of the house with tomatoes, chili peppers and carrots. The plants were first sprouted in old can and bottles then planted in the garden plot several days later. These activities were carried out with the help of the youth that attend daily computer classes and the implementation process was a combination of both work and education on plants and nutrition. Each week we do a little garden maintenance with the help of our students and incorporate the conversations about nutrition into our cooking classes. Thus far it has been a huge success. Many of the plants have been given away to families and students who now plan to start their own gardens. In combination with the cooking classes students now realize that vegetables are not only healthy but easy to grow and delicious when cooked properly. Our goal is for every family in Nueva Mercedes to have a garden of their own someday. This will reduce the cost of food and get kids much needed vitamins as the vegetables add to a more a balanced diet.

In the coming days we plan to expand the garden as our small plants have now grown and will soon be producing vegetables. The students here are excited and it is safe to say that the gardening project of Lichutam is showing great results both for the students and their families.

Adelante Segundo Grado

This week we continued our efforts in the Polochic Valley town of Nueva Mercedes working in the local primary school in the morning, teaching computer classes in the afternoon and also hosting a myriad of extracurricular activities that include, gardening, arts and crafts and physical education.

Here is a quick update on the primary school situation—particularly second grade where we have seen success as of late. It seems that the second graders are at the perfect age and literacy level to really see positive short-term results from our supplementary actions in class. As we have reiterated many times our work in the classroom is mainly focused on:

-Making the job of the teacher as smooth and stress-free as possible

-Providing supplements to day-to-day lessons that offer the opportunity for students to be creative and utilize critical thinking and problem solving skills (both of which are absent from standard curriculums in the region)

-Eliminate teaching time lost from grading papers, maintaining order in the class, and monotonous busy work

This was the plan for all the classes we worked with and the short-term results have been very positive. Here is a snapshot of what it has been like in second grade. The second grade teacher, Martha, was great at maintaining order in the class, but lacked creativity and tactile activities that accommodate a wider range of learning styles. Also a few disruptive students were falling behind. They were constantly being disciplined so that the rest of the class could not function smoothly and were not getting the necessary one-on-one time to excel academically. After a few weeks in the class we identified these students and it was apparent that if they understood the lessons and were given the necessary attention to excel like their fellow students, both the disruptiveness and the academic shortcomings would be eliminated. Months later we can safely say that our strategy worked. The disruptive students were reseated in the front of the class and given special attention in each and every assignment by the teacher for the first month. As their confidence built and literacy improved we slowly began to ease off and help them less and less. The students now only require a little encouragement in the activities that are difficult for them but are functioning as part of the class and learning each day.  The second issue (absence of creativity and tactile activities) was one that had a simple antidote. For each dull exercise by the teacher (usually involving a two-minute explanation of material followed by thirty minutes to an hour of copying by the students from the whiteboard), we incorporate solving of exercises on the board for the students who finish first, a game for all students that reinforces the new concept learned, and a tactile demonstration of the concept. For example, when studying how the heart works volunteers were selected: one was the heart, one played an arm, and two students pretended to be blood cells. Every time the heart clapped his hands, symbolizing one pump of the heart, the blood cells had to run across the room to the arm and then run back at the second clap. Tactile demonstrations like these grab the students attention, provide a supplementary explanation for students who did not understand the concept fully from the teacher’s verbal explanation and make students excited to then work individually on whatever homework or busy work has been assigned. The other main advantage of games, demonstrations and board drills is that they are the perfect filler for the time that was being wasted previously. Now when the teacher begins the day by grading homework from the previous night, the students will be playing a game or solving exercises on the board related to a previously learned concept. The result is a teacher who can efficiently grade the work with no distractions and a class that is receiving extra attention during this time. Board drills and games that require students to answer questions in front of the class have built confidence in each child in the class and developed their public speaking skills. In the first weeks students were terrified to answer a question in front of the class. This has changed to a culture of participation where students are now completing assignments faster in order to be the first to answer questions in front of the class or participate in a game.

There is still much work to be done and each grade has its own set of specific issues that need attention. However, short-term results have shown obvious increases in productivity and teachers’ morale. Long-term results, if we continue at the current pace of improvement will be monumental for the students, teachers and all the families of Nueva Mercedes. 

Back to the Valley

So much has been going on in the Polochic Valley ever since Caleb and I have returned from renewing our visas. We had a chance to hit the open road for a week or so and talk to all sorts of people about all sorts of ideas regarding Li Ch’utam.  After discussing the project with so many people and running everything over in my head for days on buses from Mexico City back down to Guatemala I returned to the volunteer house in the Polochic more impassioned than ever. The timing is perfect as well, because all of the seeds we planted in our first few careful months here are now coming to fruition in these months before we have to say goodbye. When we first got here all we had was a great big house on a hill that none of the people were allowed to come into.  We started playing sports with the kids every day and then the adults invited us to their daily soccer games. This initial connection to the people led us to the town hall gatherings and the parent/teacher meetings where Caleb and I were asked to help out in the 1^st and 2^nd grade. After 4 months in the classrooms, we both have seen great progress in the students as well as the teachers. Not only do they show up every day to work, which was the biggest issue in the first months, they even stayed with us after hours this week to construct a huge float for the kids to ride in the big parade in Teleman.  A big issue in local education is that the majority of the kids still can’t read, so the school definitely has a ways to go before everything is A-ok, but with 3 volunteers helping out in 4 grades we are currently as effective as we have ever been in improving the local primary schooling.

Since opening the doors of the house to the kids every afternoon some very interesting projects have risen as they explore different interests and activities. Our most recent project is a compost and garden in front of the house which will give us plenty of vegetables for free cooking classes and restaurant/movie nights. All of the kids helped us plant various seeds in old tin cans that we poked holes in. With pulp from cleaned coffee beans and great soil from a lombri compost the plantation provided us with the perfect mix for our new plants. About one week has passed and the plants are ready to be transferred directly in our garden which is sectioned off with fallen banana trees.

It has become a tradition for Osman, Caleb and I to take the kids to the river for a swim every weekend. It’s so hot here, but no one really minds the long walks because we all know what’s waiting at the end of that long dusty road…We have our own hidden swimming hole tucked into a quiet corner of the woods. It came fully equipped with a white sandy beach, a nice tall rock to jump off of, a clean not so strong current to play in, and 20 funny, fearless kids learning how to swim. 

Osman, our newest volunteer from Guatemala, is an artist and has brought an interesting dynamic to the house. The kids have been painting and incorporating natural materials like rocks, leaves, and twigs into their designs. Also on walks to the river and in the hills we collect things like seeds from the corosso palm and rubber tree saplings to craft rings and earrings with some tools we picked up in the neighboring town. Hopefully all of the kids will have made their own rings by mother’s day…

The computer literacy program has been running for close to 2 months. By now everyone is familiar with the keyboard, knows how to handle the computers, and can find the programs they need to practice their typing and upload/view photos they’ve taken with various volunteers who have visited. The kids have the majority of the letters and keys memorized (we make sure they aren’t cheating by covering their hands and keyboards with mats) which is a huge accomplishment since most of them didn’t know the alphabet very well before the  computer classes started.  This means the computer classes have helped with basic literacy as well as giving the kids an advantage for future careers, entrepreneurial endeavors, and the challenges posed by modern society in the age of information and technology. There are 18 students from 1^st through 6^th grade that have been attending the 2 hour classes 5 times a week for the last 2 months. Six of those students are typing close to or above 10 words per minute while the majority is typing at 5-6 words per minute.

Caleb and I have 2 months left with Li Ch’utam before our Co-op with Northeastern is over. That puts us right on schedule to maintain our pilot projects in technology, art, agriculture, and primary education while linking our project to the national leaders in educational reform at the Universidad del Valle convention in May and at Tech Camp Guatemala in July. We will speak at these events with a team of local leaders from the community (ages 13-26.) This will be a good opportunity to transfer some of the ownership and management of Li Ch’utam over to the people who live in the Polochic Valley. This will assure sustainability and relevance of projects as new volunteers take over as 6-12 month consultants to the local leaders.

We give a big thankyou and hug to all of the people who have ever read a Li Ch’utam blog post, thought about our project, or came down to visit and share this amazing year with us.

1 Love – Li Ch’utam 2012

Li Ch'utam's Feeling the Love in Guatemala

Caleb and I give a huge thank you to all of our friends and family who have supported us from around the world and right here in Guatemala. There are so many great groups of people working towards positive growth in education and human equality. Our Guatemalan friends at Campus Tec are working on an amazing Tech Camp to connect innovative youth leaders from the city and the pueblo in order to collaborate on common issues and solutions. We would love to send a team of talented, motivated youth from Nueva Mercedes to meet with some very interesting, dynamic folks during what could be a life changing experience. This exposure to technology will probably add to their growing interest in the computers and cameras we’ve used with the kids to explore media and computer literacy. They come to the house a few days a week in the afternoons to tinker with the tech stuff and lounge on the sofa picking books from the library. God Bless the Marist Brothers of Guatemala City who were so kind to us and donated books, soccer balls, and toys during our last trip to Guatemala City. Thanks to Br. Rene Roy from Central Catholic High School for putting us in touch with his friends around the world! We’d love to send some photos and stories by the kids to some students studying Spanish at Central Catholic.

It was a big past week for Li Ch’utam as we had 2 more volunteers visiting the project and lending a hand. Eric Johnston from Northeastern University came down for his Spring Break to take the whirlwind tour of Guatemala’s beautiful landscapes, cultures, and of course magical pueblos like Nueva Mercedes!  Picking up Eric in the City, we stayed the night with our friends at the QuetzalRoo Hostel for trekkers on a social mission. To celebrate our progress over the last few months we had a great big barbecue on the roof of the hostel and exchanged stories and project details with the visitors from all over the world. We met professional photographer Florian Luxenberger (Flo) and we all decided it’d be best if he spent a week with us helping out with Li Ch’utam’s multimedia projects. On the road we have met great people like Flo and the crew from the QuetzalRoo; Guatemala seems to be brimming with young, motivated do gooders from around the world. If we can link the international entrepreneurs with the innovative local leaders there is great potential in Guatemala for large scale social change.  We have 4 months left before we have to leave this beautiful place and I know by then the project will be in strong Mayan hands… not mine.  Help us encourage young, motivated youth to pursue their education by staying in touch with the projects in the Polochic, consider working for Li Ch’utam, or by joining endeavors of your own.