In March of 2012, 15 challengers headed off on a three day challenge to raise funds and awareness for our projects in Guatemala. The challenge included hiking to the highest peak, biking and kayaking Lake Atitlán. Not an easy task for our challengers. But they want to make a difference in these children's lives. 

Funds raised from this challenge go towards our food and fruit programs in Guatemala, especially important following years of failed crops. Food is invaluable for these school children. Happy tummies equals happy education.  

We would like to share the most recent trustee report from the GVI Charitable Trust. This report covers the six month period from July to December 2011.

This has been by far the most successful period. In six months we have raised nearly as much as we did the whole previous year. This increase in funding has brought a corresponding increase in the impact we have been able to create on our programs around the world.

During this period we have invested in sustainable education across Latin America. This includes support for the elderly in Guatemala and income generation schemes to support education in Honduras and Ecuador. In Mexico we have worked with a community to establish a recycling centre and in Kenya our partners in Mombasa will now see impoverished students complete primary education to earn qualifications for the first time.

These are just a few highlights of an amazing, productive and rewarding six months. Thank you to everyone who has supported us and played a crucial role in these achievements.

• GVI Charitable Trust Annual Report (PDF)
  

Over the years on our projects around the world nutrition remains one of the most important aspects of our projects. We have seen children and their grades develop in direct relation to increased nutrition at school.

In Guatemala many children in Indigenous communities face serious difficulties on a daily basis. Adopting very adult roles at a young age many children will not attend school regularly due to their commitments in the home which may include collecting firewood and working in the fields to help out food on the table.

Food programs in schools increase the chance that children will attend school regularly and with increased nutrition, concentration and attendance levels they will earn better grades resulting in increased future opportunities.

Support for this project has helped us to keep the school meal program running in Lake Atitlan, Guatemala giving these amazing children more opportunities.

14 Whole Foods Market Team members have been working in Lake Atitlan, Guatemala to contribute towards our educational program and learn about the importance of our work. In addition to providing instructional support in the classroom, the TM’s have been helping with the food program.

We have continued to supply the students with their corn-meal based atol drink. 1000 pounds of vitamin-fortified corn meal, sugar, spices and rice are being supplied after the government subsidy was discontinued due to budget cuts.

As proven over the years, school meals are so important in both maintaining a consistent attendance levels and helping these children to concentrate when at school.

With 28 additional students now at the school we are committed to providing school meals for all. With fixed daily costs for this program donations through Global Giving are hugely beneficial to keeping this going.

The children at the school come from the poor and often neglected Indigenous communities and the meal at school will often be their only substantial meal of the day. This means the school meals are responsible for providing crucial nutrition to these growing children but they can also act as an incentive to attend school regularly bringing numerous benefits for the future. In addition, with a good meal at school the children are able to concentrate more fully and benefit from the lessons.

As we have seen over the years if a child is hungry they cannot learn so an investment in nutrition cannot be overstated.

Support through 2010 for this project has been amazing, research and our experience has shown that by providing school meals for children in poor communities they are much more likely to attend school regularly. Also at school these children will be more likely to succeed as a balanced and nutritious diet aids healthy growth, development and concentration in school.

Over the years we have seen shy and timid children progress into confident and intelligent young adults, the benefit of school meals in this process cannot be overstated.

As we make our way into a new year there are many children in Lake Atitlan who can benefit from this project and with your support we will give more children the opportunity to learn.  

Our school meals program in Lake Atitlan Guatemala is continuing as ever. The children receive bread, tamales and atol (a fortified corn based drink) fruit and tamales. The students are also receiving chuchitos which is made from corn meal and filled with chicken. Along with the tamles and chucitos the children receive montucas which contains a very nutritious vegetable here called chipilin. At the moment there are pineapples and melons in the market so we are able to offer these as well.

The children love all the great food we are able to provide them. Many children come to school on an empty stomach and we would like to expand this program to include more fruits and vegetables. We also have more students than ever and we believe the food program is drawing the children to our school and giving them an opportunity to receive an education and a well- balanced diet.

Thank you so much for the support, it's great to see how effective something as simple as this can be.

School meals encourage regular attendance

It is easy to see that children with a full stomach have better concentration levels and are less fidgety. This program continues to battle against this problem, with daily food and fruit.

As we come to the end of 2009 we can lok back on a year where almost 200 children received daily food and fruit, thanks to the kind donors from Global Giving. Next year, the community leaders tell me there are yet many kids to come to the school, so we definately have a tough though fruitful year ahead. Many thanks to all our donors and Happy New Year! cheers

Greetings. The project at the lake has had an excellent year and to start fundraising for next year, I will be embarking on a Charity Challenge, climbing 4 volcanoes in 6 days, so please, if you can, spare a penny or two to help raise funds for such a good cause. cheers

Robert Dubois and I visited GVI as part of our GlobalGiving staff listening tour in Guatemala. This is what we saw and heard:

- Fruit for School Lunches -

Alton picked us up and drove us to a hidden village in the hills surrounding Lake Atitlan. On the way, we stopped off in the market at Solola to collect fruit that GVI provides school children as part of project 2466, “Energy Efficient Cooking Stoves in Lake Atitlán,” and 2467, “School Meals at Lake Atitlán, Guatemala.” Opposite the market, several hundred indigenous people congregated in front of their community hall. It was some sort of demonstration, one of many we saw on our week-long listening tour. The people here are restless and want more from their government.

The school was full of happy kids. Alton introduced us. He knew the names of almost all of them, which tells you he is very involved with ensuring the project delivers. Alton has worked in this region for years with GVI. Alton said, “I joined as a volunteer. We only had one project set up at that time. I am a teacher from New York. As I was leaving, Dom (the regional director) asked me, ‘what do you think about setting up a project in Ecuador?’ Well I couldn’t pass that up!” And so he has continued to work throughout Central and South America ever since. GVI has 10 projects on GlobalGiving.

These kids are all indigenous, and Alton says that GVI works to help the community in a variety of ways, although we only had time to visit one school and see the school-lunch and the stove-building programs. The new kitchen is now less smoky and more fuel-efficient than the old one, thanks for support from GlobalGiving donors.

- Global Vision International’s Approach -

Alton explained GVI’s approach. “We believe in reciprocity. We don’t want to give out stuff. That’s not how we work. We work in conjunction with the community. For example, with the firewood, we don’t provide the wood. The kids provide the wood. We give ‘em fruit. Lunch as well. But they bring their own tortillas, forks, and plates.”

“The history of the indigenous here is full of repression, discrimination, and indifference. The first language here is Katchikal. [These kids don’t speak Spanish when they start school here.] The trust of the community is our main goal. Dom and I have been up here speaking with community leaders, mothers, and teachers for over two years. Our projects are long term, a 25 year plan.”

- How do we preserve local culture? -

Alton also wanted us to know that GVI was sensitive about the relationship between outsiders and indigenous communities. They think placing volunteers in villages is counter productive because the foreigners bring new ideas that disrupt the community. They need more food, cleaner houses, and a lot of emotional support.

As a former Peace Corps volunteer, I found these ideas worthy of a longer discussion. I personally think that some volunteers can do meaningful work in the right settings, and that indigenous culture is changing too rapidly to preserve already. During our classroom visit to the 2nd grade, I held up a cell phone and asked, “Have you ever used one of these?”

About a third of the students in the 2nd grade raised a hand. “What did you do with it?” “I talked with my mother,” one girl said. “Yes, my grandmother called me,” another said.

We live in a rapidly shrinking society. Our aim at GlobalGiving is to ensure that more people benefit from the technology that is causing this world to shrink.

The children continue to receive their fruit and one big meal during the day, having had to spend 2 weeks out of school, and therefore no food, due to the H1N1 flu virus scare. We could not go to school during this time, which was a shame, as the children, with no school, have no food. Luckily, the restructions have been lifted and business resumes as normal.

The food program is an integral part of our project, and its benefits are obvious,both for the children and the community itself, especially as it brings new children into the education system. Everyday at the community we keep seeing new faces. The school and community have been filled with the little brothers and sisters that come along for the school day. We have been seeing a lot of newborns as well. It always brings a smile to everyone's faces when they see these babies that are only a few months old. They are the future of the program and it is a fantastic feeling to see the pride of these new mothers and their little ones. I have spoken with many of these mothers and they have expressed gratitude for the project and are especially interested in the food and fruit program. It is a very agrarian community. I am seeing a lot more involvement with the mothers as we enter the 2009 school year. They have been lending a hand in the lunch preparation as well as the pineapple cutting. It is a great time of the year for pineapples and we have been receiving discounts at the market. The kids love it and these are special pineapples called "azucarron", which basically translates as super sweet pineapples!

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A healthy meal

The scholastic year finally started, after a small delay, though our food program continued through the holidays, so the children never missed out on a warm bowl of food. With the school year now in full swing, there are many more mouths to feed, which we are complying with with aplomb, thanks to generous donors.