Help 40 Guatemalan children unlock their potential

Pablo Picasso is quoted as saying: "The purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life off our souls." What a wonderful metaphor this is to describe the therapeutic benefits of art. When we started weekly art class with 10 students a couple of months ago we imagined the academic benefits they would gain such as improvements in mental focus and physical dexterity however, we hadn't begun to imagine how something as simple as a weekly art class could help the students reduce stress and relax. The students have been learning 3 of the 12 elements of art and putting these skills to work to create their own works of art ranging from a scratch art project using more than 20 different types of lines to a painted rock tic-tac-toe board using the primary colors to doing a "yarn painting." Each week we have watched as the students gain self confidence through their artistic expressions and gain valuable skills at the same time. Your donations help us to be able to provide this creative outlet for these 10 students.

Thank you,

Colleen

Greetings from our team in Guatemala. We hope this message finds you well. We wanted to take the opportunity to update you on how this project has been going over the past few months. With your donations we are continuing to run our educational program with a group of 20 children for this school year 2022 (which typically runs from January to October). At this point public schools have been closed for 2 years, with no current plans for opening. Throughout the past year we have been our students' only chance for hands on learning experiences each week. For this school year we plan to add extracurricular activities (art and handbell choir) as well as we will be adding science to our curriculum. Our goal is to one day run a Christian Montessori preschool for low income students and with your donations we are well on our way. Below we attached some photos of the students learning in our new and improved school space. And we also wanted to take this time to thank you for your donations which our making these learning opporunities available. Thank you for your support!

Best,

Colleen