Time to start 2014!

Li Ch’utam is in Nueva Mercedes with full volunteers team for the next months: Albert, Anna, Dodo and Ewa.

“I arrived in Nueva Mercedes on the 13^th of January. Reality here is so different from what most people are customized. However, despite the cultural differences, being here alters your perspective of the world. It opens your mind and makes you realize the broader framework that this world functions under. It is a life-changing experience, which cultivates your humanity and develops your sense of fulfillment.”

                                                                                  Anna

“After three weeks in Nueva Mercedes I can say that we have a lot of work here. During this period of time we had been planning all the projects that we want to do in the area. The situation here is really hard and the only mission that we have here is to bring some opportunities or facilities to people. I hope that we can leave a good impression to the local people about Li Ch’utam after our period here.”

                                                                                  Albert

Last weeks we’ve spent on getting to know the village, people, meeting with different groups and planning our activities. Some projects already started, other are still in planning phase. Stay tuned for more information soon!

Dreams come true for Christmas

Last weeks were all about scholarship programme.

There was a meeting for all the families who subscribed or wanted to subscribe their young kids to high school. The criteria were: willingness to study, involvement in Li Ch’utam activities, poor family resources making studying impossible. The applicants had to fill in the questionnaire with questions such as: why do you want to continue studying, what do you plan to do in 5 years, why do you apply for Li Ch’utam scholarship, how do you want to be involved in Li Ch’utam, how can Li Ch’utam support you apart from the scholarship. They also had to do the year budget for the scholarship. 
(on the pictures you can see the applicants working on their applications)

During the application process it turned out that 2 out of 7 applicants don’t really speak Spanish on the communicative level, other 2 understand but speak rather basic. That makes me think how is it possible that teachers let them graduate 6^th grade of primary school (all the classes are in Spanish) if they cannot communicate in Spanish.. I suppose they let them pass because they know that they didn’t make any effort during the year to really teach them.

The next step was an interview with the families to get to know their financial situation, so they were asked about fixed job and other family incomes, number of kids, why parents want the applicant to study and how do they see studying with home tasks.

Thanks to BALEU S.A. we could finally give 3 scholarships and not 2. After reviewing the situation of each family it turned out that there is only one family that has no resources to support the secondary education (no fixed job, many kids) and others live with limited but rather stable income. 

So the final decision was to give one full scholarship and the rest was divided between the other 6 young people. In this way we can support them all according to the needs they have. Apart from financial support Li Ch’utam wants to support them with activities like computer classes, typing, English etc. Celia, Devora, Fidencio, Israel, Julio, Rony and Otto will be studying starting from January with Li Ch’utam support. You should have seen the faces of the kids and their families when I was informing them about the decision. They were so grateful that someone is supporting them in their kids education. I think that’s the best present I have ever given to anyone for Christmas J. Do you remember when I wrote few months ago about the young girl who wants to study but her family has no money for it? She will receive the scholarship - dreams come true for Christmas :)

Marry Christmas!

Understanding the community

Communication with the community is progressing. Visits of each house were taking too long and were not possible because of lack of time and translation resources (because of activities with kids we could have run them only on Monday and Friday morning and not always on these days we had people to translate). So the strategy changed. We had meetings with  COCODE's from both communities (Nueva Mercedes and La Ceiba) and after that we had meetings with people (women mainly) from both communities. At each meeting we had around 10-15 people (instead of 50) but the meetings were very effective. We asked about what people think about Li Ch'utam's work in the community, we were discussing the activities we run with primary school kids and it turned out that some of the families didn't know much about Li Ch'utam or about our activities. Since then we have few new kids coming for our classes. We also discussed the high school education possibilities, costs and possible transportation options. The most interesting part for the women were of course the activities with adults. All the participants (20 women) were very enthusiastic about all our ideas and subscribed for all of them. They had also some new ideas like bread and soap making. It seems like 2014 will be a busy year :).

Secondary education

In the past year there were 5 kids attending high school in Telemán out of which only one girl (for around 20 at the age of high school). I was talking to another girl who did one year of high school but did not get promotion and was not studying last year. She said that she was not studying because her younger brother started to study and the family didn’t have money for her education. She really wants to study and because of a big promotion and Li Ch’utam’s involvement in secondary education her parents decided to subscribe her to start school from January again. She said however that one day her father says that she can continue education and another day he says that there is no reason for it as he has no secondary education and has nice job and above all she’s a woman so what for does she need to study. Her brother says that it’s a waist of money to put her studying. I’m not surprised she didn’t pass the year with such support from her family..

So the subscription to high school was the hottest topic during the last weeks.

First the transportation to Telemán was organized for a reduced price. The previous volunteers discovered that people don’t send their kids to high school because the cost of transportation is too high and the road not secure. It was agreed with one driver that he takes each day high school kids at a specific hour and brings them back after classes. It was to be an exclusive transportation (and the secure one) for high school kids and for certain amount of money to be paid each way no matter how many kids are going. The price reduced from 5Q to 3,75Q each way with at least 20 kids. However after that we received the information that there will be high school in La Constancia which is a closer village, much better and cheaper option for people in the village. The cost of transportation is 2Q each. The cost of school is much lover as well, so the total cost would be around 150Q per month comparing to more than 400Q per month in Telemán. Li Ch'utam helped people to get more information about conditions to encourage them to subscribe. We wanted also to organize the secure transportation on a reduced price to La Constancia instead of Telemán. Counting with 20 out of 27 at the age of high school only 10 were really interested and were attending the meetings. Finally only 7 subscribed to La Constancia and maybe 2-3 will go to Telemán. Only one family asked for financial support. The transportation to La Constancia will not be organized as there are not enough kids. I was very surprised that less than a half of families attended the meetings about high school. So I started talking to these young people if they are going to subscribe and why didn’t their families attend the meetings. Some of them said that they don’t want to study. So it seems that the problem is not security, lack of money or distance but people's (both kids and parents) willingness. Now I feel like it’s worth to focus on those who really want to study, support them financially or in any other way to make them examples for the community and encourage more kids to study next years. Li Ch’utam decided to give 2 scholarships this year to those who could not study without our support. I hope all this will make the families think about their kids education.

Books

One of the previous volunteers suggested that it would be nice to run a study to understand the life of the community better. There are moments when I see the need of such a study as some situations are so much NOT logical for me that it’s difficult to accept them.

Few months ago the school received many (around 200) books from the Ministry of Education. They were supposed to be used during the first half an hour (7:30-8:00) every day during school year so that kids can progress in reading. As the teachers never came at 7:300 the books were not used. During summer activities we do literacy classes and the kids read almost all of the books we have (around 40) so I asked the director if Li Ch’utam could use the school books. He said that during holidays he is not a director but as he was responsible for the books before he put them all in boxes and there is a list and nothing can be lost so Li Ch’utam cannot use them during holidays. So the books were not used during school term (as they arrived late and teachers didn’t want to come for this half an hour reading) and cannot be used during holidays because have to be in the boxes. That’s how the resources (limited indeed) are used effectively..

Electricity

Before the holiday started I was informed that the invoice of the school electricity was not paid and it’s possible that during holidays there will be no electricity in school. That would disturb our classes a lot as we run 2 hours computer classes twice a week and use computers also during other activities. I even offered help in electricity bill payment. The director assured me that it will be done by the Parents Committee and I don’t have to worry about it. Luckily there was electricity from the beginning of holidays so I though it’s done. Two weeks ago we were connecting computer and speakers for the movie we always put on Wednesday and the discovered that there is no electricity at school. Next day I talked to the director and he said that the bill was to be paid that day and from the next day we can use electricity. Of course next day there was no electricity so Friday computer classes were cancelled. However I was very positively surprised because on Monday morning the electricity was there and in the afternoon I had computer classes with kids. That proves that IT IS possible here to manage the situation “quite” quickly! J Why to wait until the electricity is cut off..?

Loneliness means being closer to people

I forgot to mention hat since 10 days I’m alone in the house. Quite an interesting experience how to overcome fear at night and another prove that getting used to new situation is just a matter of time. I also feel a bit closer to the community, watching local football championship with them, talking to people I meet in the village more than before, getting a lot of information from Celia, Devora and Waldemar and learning Q’eqchi. J It’s somehow different to be alone here than with other volunteers but I’m really looking forward to mid January to have more people onboard.

 

Bantiox Astrid!

Astrid left Mercedes on Friday and it’s rather sad here now.

Few words from Astrid before leaving Mercedes:

“The beginning was a bit difficult for me as I wasn’t speaking Spanish fluently, it was my first experience in volunteering and spending so much time outside France. There were so many people, hot weather and I felt lost. The first week I had to get used to hot weather, food and I was really afraid of animals/insects, especially spiders. But now I know that you can get used to everything (even if you have arachnophobia you can live with spiders under one roof). The children did a very nice welcome and accepted me from the first day. The people in general were very nice for me. Little by little we started working together with Ewa and we got used to living here and every day life was just continuing naturally.

It was nice to work with Ewa, share ideas, feeling as a part of the team and doing things together but also being responsible for some activities.

The best moments were when seeing the kids laughing. Even though they are lacking many things they seem soooo happy. The most incredible is that they spread the happiness easily to everyone around like an “air diseases” and even if you were angry for them a minute ago now they make you happy and you love them with all your heart.

There are some issues/things to improve in Li Ch’utam as it is still a developing organization. The good thing is that it’s a small, grassroots organization and works with people directly and we can see effects of our work quickly (sometimes we see the kids progress even week to week).

I liked to see that there are people especially young people here who want to be involved in the life of their community and I liked a lot to talk and spend time with them.

For me in general it was a very nice experience to meet people, other culture even though it was sometimes difficult to get used to some things like always waiting for people. J But finally I will have a very nice and only positive memories out of this experience. “

Astrid

Thank you Astrid for your presence in Nueva Mercedes, your excellent work with kids, patience, ideas and commitment to the organization. 

I really loved to work with you as I could always count on you and share my thoughts. Living together and spending free time with you was a great pleasure. I hope that you’ll be in touch with Li Ch’utam and can come back one day to see the changes in the community. I remember when at one of the meetings one mother said: “Dile a Astrid que no se vaya!”. Debora, one of our young volunteers said today that she couldn’t sleep Friday night and was crying because she got used to Astrid so much and she treated her like an older sister. 

Dodo's first impressions

 Dodo is on board since one week.

“When I took my last flight from Houston to Guatemala City, I was really stressed, because I knew, things would be different, but when I finally left the airport, I thought it was Napoli instead of Guate. But still this isn't Europe, which I learned very fast, because if something works in Napoli, then it's the road building but in Guate the roads and the drivers aswell are very shitty. And if you are used to European roads and travel on those potholed dirt roads for many hours, you get a feeling of being at the and of the world and to be honest, this feeling didn't change by now, because I think this really is the end of the world. But I like the end of the world pretty much, because it's very pretty. Like the streets, very dirty but somehow awesome. Even though my Spanish is not the best, I am able to communicate with the kids already and playing soccer is also an international language, that everyone gets. I'm looking forward to come back here, after I improved my Spanish in Antigua for a month, so I can exchange more than “donde esta la pelota” or “no tocar mi cabello sin preguntar” and grin silly, when I don't get a word again. But by now I'm really glad to be here, sweating my soul out of my body when I make a step, instead of being in the shitty weather, that Hamburg provides at the moment :)“

Dodo

Holiday activities

It’s been already more than 3 weeks of holiday activities in Nueva Mercedes. For morning activities sometimes we had no kids so we have decided to reschedule he activities a bit, so on Monday and Friday there are no activities in the morning and the grades from that days join the other days (pre-primary comes with first grade on Tuesday and fifth and sixth grade comes with third and fourths on Thursday). Anyway for morning activities we have maximum 10 kids, which is quite good because we can attend each kid and not so good in the same time because we reach only around 15-30 kids every week with the morning activities. So far we had two weeks of travelling around the world visiting Guatemala, Poland, France, China, Tanzania, showing photos and describing different customs, preparing flags of different countries, dancing polonez, merengue, doing Chinese hat and African mask. 

The two following weeks are about nature, so we talk about water: seas, lakes, rivers etc, about water animals and the usage of water, it’s importance and disasters. The same scheme is about wind and earth, including ecology issues, always with manual activities. Kids like a lot manual activities we do with the topics, there are 2 kids who come 2 or 3 times a week for the same activity and each time they are happy to do the same manual activity!

The schedule of afternoon activities did not change. Monday and Friday we have computer classes. The good thing is that we have new participants (from families we have visited recently) and these are young girls (not attending the school any more (age 14 and 15). So they were working on computer for the first time last week. We showed them a bit of basics of computer usage and Word/Libre office so that they can learn a bit how to write. We are also discovering the games available in Edubuntu and trying to put different game each time, adjusting to kid’s level of literacy. We plan to put each time a “topic”, for example writing or math or memory etc. so that each kid does something connected with the “topic” but on her/his level.

At literature classes (Tuesday and Thursday) we are progressing with Lester, the kid coming every time who cannot read and write, he already knows almost all the alphabet letters and is practicing it on computer classes as well.

There are more kids from fifth and sixth grade and at the age of high school but not attending school coming for both literacy and computer classes. All together there are almost 50 kids/young people coming for our classes. That means we are reaching almost one third of the kids in the community with our activities. Many kids cannot come because they are working, the older once in the plantation and the youngers at home, some kids live a bit far from school and cannot come alone but still for sure that we could have at least 20-30 more coming.

The nicest view is of course Wednesday when we see 20 faces so naturally laughing watching a movie. J

Last Thursday the school ended officially. 

The sixth grade students had a more formal event (for the first time in this school). 

The teachers came two hours later than they should have as it was raining a lot those days and it was not possible to cross the river in Teleman (for the same reason we couldn’t go for shopping on Wednesday). The decoration and programme was prepared half an hour before the event and the event was 1,5 hour late (Guatemalan style :) ). We had our parts in this event: Astrid was IT person, responsible for the music, and I was a master of ceremony. It was not an easy task as we got this information, programme, music etc. 10 minutes before the start of it. But we were happy to help. The last words of the event belonged to Rony, teacher of the sixth grade who congratulated the students and wished them to continue studying.

Activities

Last Monday children here started holidays that will last until mid January. We have decided to run activities for them. Every day from Monday to Friday in the morning we have activities with different grade on the specific topic. For the first two weeks it’s “travelling around the world” where we talk about countries from different continents, showing photos, talking about differences comparing to Guatemala, food, dancing and doing crafts. The next two topics will be: “nature” with animals, plants and a bit of ecology, and “cultural activities” with art, theatre, sports etc. In the afternoon we have classes for everyone, Monday and Friday computer classes, with educational games, Tuesday and Thursday literature – reading books together with different exercises helping in understanding what is read, Wednesday movie watching. We have started on Monday, for the morning activities sometimes we have 10 kids sometimes no one is coming. 

When they come they are eager to learn and do the activities even though they are rather shy. In the afternoon there are much more kids coming (15-20). They like doing math or writing exercises on computers and the games we do apart. During literature classes we only do activities connected with reading and writing. Every child coming starts reading a book and we try to help if any problems. There are also some exercises like reading small texts and guessing what is described. All of the kids try to read and with those who don’t know reading and writing we seat apart showing them letters writing with them and trying to read simple words/books. There is one child already doing progress in our classes in reading.

To help us in the activities with small children but also to create young leaders in the community, we have asked few young people to help us in activities for kids. We have 3 people (one boy and two girls). They help a lot especially with 5-6 years old kids and first grade translating from Spanish to Q’eqchi everything we say. So the team of volunteers here actually has 5 people now: Astrid, Celia, Deborah, Ewa and Waldemar. All the volunteers are doing great job. :) We will have regular meetings where we plan to discuss past week and plan activities for the coming week. One of them is studying in high school in Telemán but the rest cannot continue studying because of lack of money. Wishing for REAL right to education for all kids…

Apart from work with kids and young people we have started talking with parents. We visit families to ask about what they know and think about Lichutam, what kind of activities they want us to do. We ask them about their kids, if they know Spanish on communicative level, can read, write and count. We also ask about their needs (of adults) and activities they propose for themselves. Families we have visited so far are quite positive about an idea of activities with adults. Some of them just want to join the ideas we have and others propose new once. We already have people interested in: writing, reading, Spanish, computer classes, gardening (vegetables mainly), weave, English, workshops on topics like health, children growing, home budgeting, addictions prevention, family planning. There are people in the village who could run some of these activities. It would be great to start the first of them this year.