Help 40 Guatemalan children unlock their potential

Hello there! We hope you are doing well. Here at our headquarters in San Andres Itzapa, Guatemala we are gearing up to start classes with our students tomorrow! This past Saturday our teachers got together for a training session and to hand out invitations to our students. We are super excited for our line up of classes this year. On Wednesdays (starting in March) we will have 1 morning tutoring session and 1 afternoon tutoring session where students can come and do their homework in a quiet and peaceful setting and get help to clarify any concepts they don't understand. This is super important as not only are many of our students first generation learners, making it difficult for their parents to help them with their homework, but also students have many distractions in their homes. On Thursdays we will have 1 morning and 1 afternoon Elements of Art class. On Fridays we will have 1 afternoon Art History class. And finally on Saturday afternoon we wil continue our Saturday Christian Montessori classes. Your continued support helps us bring these opportunities to these students in order to help them reach their full potential. We will keep you updated throughout the year about the students' progress as well as will be sure to include photos so that you may see how we are putting your donations to good use.

Thanks so much for being a part of this great project!

Best,

Colleen

“Congratulations! Today is our day. We’re off to Great Places! We’re off and away!”

When we first started working with children in our community in 2017 we worked in circumstances very different from how we work now. Our Vacation Bible School and other activities were held in makeshift tents in a dirt field. While we gave lessons the fleas bit our legs and at the end of the day our hair was stiff with dust and our feet were black. Our students ate their snack crouched down in the dirt. Yet more than 150 students lined up each day to participate in our activities. Then Covid hit and changed the way we work. While we can no longer work with large group of students, our focus shifted to working with small groups of students giving them high quality educational experiences and individual attention. Thanks to generous donors like you we now have a beautiful space and a variety of materials for our students to learn and enjoy. Next year, 2023, we plan to take full advantage of our new space to serve our students. We plan to inaugurate our learning center we have called Centro Somos El Futuro (We Are The Future Center). In addition to Vacation Bible School, Saturday Christian Montessori and Friday Elements of Art Class, we plan to add courses in Art History, Beginning Literacy and English. We will be participating in a bonus fundraising campaign on November 29th, 2022 to raise the funds to pay for our teachers' salaries, daily snack and learning materials. We are hoping to raise $15 per student per month for at least 40 students. We wanted to reach out to our current donors to get your help in spreading the word. If you think any of your contacts might be interested in supporting one (or more) of our students we appreciate sharing information about our project and the link to donate: https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/we-are-the-future-guatemala/

As always thank you for your support!

Best,

Colleen