Sustain and SupportTowards our
goal of building sustainable education for
this village
El Adelanto (Guatemala)
Open: February 2012
Upon entering the small hamlet of El Adelanto, one is immediately captured by the beauty and tranquility of the quiet rural town and the valley that surrounds it.
Terraced farms abut rocky cliffs and the smell of corn, bean, and potato plants waft through the town center, leaving you with a peaceful sense of calm. And the people are no different. Dressed primarily in colorful traje tipico (native dress with geographically specific patterns), the citizens of El Adelanto always come armed with a smile and a hearty handshake. They carry themselves with a quiet dignity that has no doubt come from years of righteous resistance during the Guatemalan civil war.
Though the people of El Adelanto have been through decades of violence and struggle, they have endured it all with a resounding sense of civic responsibility and camaraderie. When meeting with the community, one actually meets with the entire community. Everyone wants to be involved. Everyone wants to help.
The teachers, students, and parents of El Adelanto had done an excellent job maintaining their school’s structure. Upon entering the school, it was not rare to see children walking through the grounds picking up trash and sorting plastic and paper from the rest of the garbage. Small gardens stood guard at many of the classroom entranceways while student artwork hung from the walls, showcasing both imagination and skill. However, with all of the effort that went into maintaining such a well-kept school, the people of Adelanto did not have enough funds to accommodate their growing student population. Consequently, the preschool and third grade had been relegated to provisional structures undeserving of the name classroom. In order to erect these temporary rooms, parts of the bathroom had to be deconstructed in order to free up materials. Children were hesitant to use the facilities because, as one teacher put it, “if the school were a theater, the bathroom would be the stage.”
The community of El Adelanto, along with PoP, was extremely excited to begin a project that would provide their students with infrastructure befitting a center for learning. On August 3rd, 2011, we broke ground and took the first step to improving the access to and quality of education for the students of El Adelanto.
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