The Mayan people in Guatemala have been subjected to centuries of oppression and genocide, resulting in greater social and economic inequality today than in any other country in Latin America.
Mayan Schoolgirls
All of CBB's scholarships in Guatemala are awarded to Mayan schoolgirls living in the highlands of this country. The scholarships are administered by two organizations, one of which is coordinated by a university educated social worker and the other by a poor Mayan mother who herself receives scholarships for her daughters.
Girls in both projects may come from homes without running water or perhaps even without toilet facilities. CBB's scholarships pay their school fees and purchase the girls' school uniform, shoes and other clothing and school supplies. Even primary school is not free in Guatemala, and costs double as a girl goes from primary school to middle school to the Guatemalan equivalent of high school.
Scholarships are given to forty Mayan girls, daughters of single mothers, in the city of Quetzaltenango and nearby villages. Most girls are in public school while a few, because of their exceptional ability, are placed in private schools that are only slightly more costly. A girl may also be put into a private school if she needs to be in smaller classes to succeed in her studies.
Denisses, shown here in her school uniform, is an outstanding student who wants to be a doctor.
A dozen girls from remote Mayan villages in the mountains with only a primary school receive scholarships to attend middle school in the nearest town, Aguacatan, traveling as much as an hour and a half each way by foot and bus.
CBB funded the materials for the construction of bathroom facilities for the primary school in the village of Rio Blanco la Vega, with the labor being provided by volunteers from the village. Materials to build a new classroom for the school have been funded by CBB, with the villagers again providing the labor.
Because of the government's minimal support for education, the average cost of a girl's scholarship in Guatemala is $400 annually, the highest of all the counties where Compassion Beyond Borders gives scholarships.
A project director's story
The project Estudia con Amor (Study with Love), was named by its director, Sandra Alonzo. Sandra herself is a mother of girls receiving CBB scholarships.
Sandra's family home has no running water and no bathroom facilities, not in the house, not even an outhouse. Yet, she knows families poorer than hers. Her family has enough food to eat, she says, but others do not, and it is the daughters of these even poorer families for whom she arranges CBB scholarships.
Nonetheless, Sandra and her family have purchased a plot of land and are building a new house with the help of Habitat for Humanity. All the family are involved in the construction, including Sandra's husband, Carlos, who provides for his family with three part-time jobs. Through her work with CBB Sandra says she has learned that "the impossible doesn't exist".
