The Guatemala Team
Patricia Castillo
Headteacher, 'Escuela Proyecto La Esperanza' Primary School
"I started working for the Foundation in 2005- about four years ago.
My job is really varied. Mostly I work in the office, working with the all the documents related to the children but I also make visits to houses to check on the families who are most in need. I regulate who receives places at the school, I organise food for the children and I collaborate with people who give us donations.
"90% of the students that come here are from the absolute lowest economic level. The rest are also poor, but their parents may have a job, or they may be lucky enough to have both parents- a father and a mother. Many live with Grandparents, Uncles and Aunts. Many have lost their parents or are living in single parent families. The children are from backgrounds of extreme poverty.
"One of the hardest things about my job is choosing who can study at our school. It's a difficult decision- at the end of November [during summer holidays] lots of families come to us asking for help. We give them the chance to fill in registration forms and we go to their houses to see where they live. Before we enrol the children in our school we check their standard of living, their parents' incomes and basically how they live. We have only a limited number of places so we make sure we are supporting those most in need. It is very sad to say no to people who ask us to help them- that's a really tough part of my job. But sadly we only have room for 25 students in each grade- realistically there is not enough space, money and teachers to help everyone, it's just not possible.
"I have so many future hopes for the Foundation- it has helped the people in this area so much. We can see the change in the lives of the families that have been helped by the Foundation. Principally, their children now have an education- something that is not free in Guatemala. I hope the Foundation keeps helping more families- and I hope we can continue to help each of these children as they grow up, with their family's support.
"As we always say; Without education, there is no future. Most of these children will now have an opportunity for a bright future- I just hope that they manage to make good use of the skills that we give them."
Sophie McKee
Guatemala Coordinator
"I've worked for the Foundation since it started in 2003. At that time it was just mainly fundraising in the UK but I started working for the Foundation full time in January 2005 when our school first opened.
"My job involves a little bit of everything. I organise the accounts, the finances, deciding where to distribute the money, I do all the daily things and I make the big decisions- whether we spend money on health or provisions or all the extras. There's also lots of just running back and forth between the schools- you never really get the same day twice- the day is filled with whatever drama happens here in the morning.
"If the Foundation had more money, we would increase the number of students that we could accept and of course every year we are trying to improve the standard of things for our existing students. Better schools, better materials, offer better services. Obviously health is a big issue over here as well- we would spend more money on supporting the families, stabilising services and improving health care.
"There's a lot more people in the area that we could also be helping. You'll always have the cases that you have to turn away, which is heartbreaking- especially when they are really deserving. But there will always be a limit and you have to establish that limit. If we had five primary schools then we would fill five primary schools, if we had five high schools then we'd fill five high schools. And that's just in this area- it would be really great in the future if we could move into other areas of Guatemala and increase our help to other areas struggling in poverty.
"The biggest hurdle that we are facing at the moment is the battle against traditional views that can hold some of the students back. Some of them have motivation problems- for many of them the importance of education has never been pushed on them at home. Most of the families that we help have never pushed the importance of education on their children- for them the most important thing has always been just surviving- whether they have enough money to get through the day and buy food seems more important. If the kids are working, they get some excitement from getting cash in their hands- it's quite hard to make them understand the long term effects of education.
"We've also seen a lot of our young students getting pregnant- and over here it's not uncommon for girls to have children in their teens and to have a family of four or five kids in their twenties. This year we are expanding our sex education extensively to try and get more of our young women to successfully complete their education.
"Every time we finish a year we have success stories. For every child that finishes their school year, it's a big step for them and it's another little success for the Foundation. Even in the four years since we've been running we've had some huge success stories- like our first college graduates, Luis and Carlos, and this year we've had three more college graduates.
"We have all the ones that are near misses- the ones that struggle at home and at school but we manage to pull them through and to get them back on track. Alcohol, drugs and family abuse are all different issues that they may have to face- these are all obstacles for the young people to overcome. If we get students to pull through all this and to get back on track and keep studying, to get through these incredibly tough moments without giving up, then these are the real successes of the Foundation."
Aracely Chajon
Psychologist 
"It's important to have a psychologist in the Foundation to help the children and teenagers who have suffered all kinds of difficulties with their families. Violence, drugs and sexual abuse are all factors that the children in the Foundation may be exposed to.
"I assess the students in groups- if I realize that one of them needs special psychological help then I will start seeing them individually. I think about 10% of the Primary school children have got serious psychological problems. In the high school it's more like 15%. Quite often we find that it's the family who need the help-not the student.
"One of the worst cases I can think of involves two boys. They suffer from a lot of violence in their family, they are extremely thin, they are frequently sick and they are dirty and hungry. One of them is very aggressive with his class mates. In the high school there are a few cases of depression and low self esteem and last year we were concerned that one student was considering suicide.
"There are lots of cases of students who have improved thanks to the Foundation. The Gonzales Xinic family- all five siblings- have improved in the Primary School more than anyone else. "
The UK Team
David McKee
Charity Chairman and Trustee
"My job involves overseeing all the running of the Charity in the UK and in Guatemala. In particular it's my responsibility for budgets and executive responsibility for just about everything that goes on; as well as reporting back to the Trustees.
"In an average year I spend about 12 weeks in Guatemala. This year I'll be spending less time there as we put more effort into fundraising in the UK, so it'll probably just be a total of around 6 weeks.
"We have two committees that help make the decisions on how the money is spent; one in the UK and one in Guatemala. Our overall spending decisions, for both the amounts and the areas of spending, is down to the board of trustees in the UK. Once that has been decided a certain amount of responsibility is passed on to the Management team in Guatemala. We tell them the areas where we want to spend, and then the specifics on what they spend it on are up to the Guatemala team. We have to keep tightly to the budgets on a monthly basis and we have regular visits to check on the project- we have three this year.
"Our immediate goal is to maintain the services and funding that we have in place for this year- in this difficult market. Long term we would like to replicate what we have in the area of Jocotenango and San Felipe and geographically spread that into other very poor areas of Guatemala and the rest of Central America.
"One of our most important projects is the Safehouse. The Safehouse houses all the extreme cases of hardship that we have; there are two families of orphans, there are victims of repeated physical and sexual abuse, and there is a family who were deserted by their last remaining parent.
"As for the most extreme cases of poverty... we've visited houses that didn't have a proper roof, didn't have proper walls, have a mud floor, and have no electricity or water. We've taken steps to improve or rebuild those houses. We've come across families that have had no food to eat for days- and we now provide them with regular food. There's too many cases to go through but in each of the different areas we try to help.
"We've had many success stories. There was the father that was repeatedly abusing his two daughters and physically assaulting his sons. We got social services to rescue the family and we got a court order for the Foundation to be legally responsible for the five children. That was a great success. There was another case where a girl was gang raped by her landlord and four friends. We moved her away and built a new house for them in another village. We still look after this family to this day. These are difficult stories to talk about but this is the reality of what we face- and if it wasn't for the Foundation the children involved would still be living in these nightmare situations.
"The money that we spend in Guatemala comes from a variety of sources. The most stable is through our individual child sponsorship programme. People pay the cost of our education programme which is £300 - £375 per annum. That money goes directly from the donor to one child and pays for the cost of their education. About a third of our budget comes from that. The rest is made from fundraising events- golf days, dinners, music events, and a small amount comes from applications to charitable trusts and corporations.
"I truly believe that people in the UK and in the developed world should support something- whether it is EFTC or another Charity. I believe it is the duty of everyone that is born in a wealthy country to try and help somebody somewhere who is less fortunate only through an accident of birth. This year we really need more help. The plummeting exchange rate and the credit crunch are really affecting us and we don't want to have to cut our services or turn children away.
home
|
