Hi! My name is Hai Yen Do (or Amy Do), and I am on a gap year journey to Central America learning new things about the world and myself. During my travels, I was led to Guatemala, where I went on a two-day hiking tour of the Acatenango Volcano with CA Travelers. This is when I met Farah, one of the owners of CA Travelers.

 

This challenging 2-day hike changed my life forever.

 

 

Farah and her partner Pablo opened their travel agency CA Travelers in 2017. Most of the tour guides who work for CA Travelers are from a place called San José Calderas, a tiny village situated in rural Guatemala close to the Acatenango Volcano. The few thousand people who live in Calderas primarily work as farmers, tour guides, street vendors, or, if they are women, stay-at-home moms, and wives. There are few to no other opportunities available to the people of Calderas, especially due to the lack of educational resources in the community.

 

Most kids here drop out of school by 4th grade and go straight to work in the streets of Antigua as vendors or in the fields as farmers on their ancestral lands. One tour guide named Harvey, who I met on the Acatenango Trek, dropped out of school and became a tour guide to provide for his family. Harvey is only 21 years old, is married, and has a 3-month-old daughter. I asked him if he wants to go back to school and he said (translated from Spanish):

 

"The truth is yes, but we’re stuck in a cycle because our parents went through the same thing. They could not study, so they could not find a stable job. Without a stable job, you cannot give your children a good education or cover living expenses. I am in that same situation as my parents were, but I want to do things differently now, so my daughter does not have to go through the same things. My country is a bit poor…"

 

I was speechless… On the way back down the volcano, I kept asking myself “How can I help?” I decided to talk to Farrah about sponsoring Harvey to take English classes and further his education. I am very grateful that I can do that for him with my salary from Canada, but there is so much more work to be done in Calderas and for the many other people like Harvey and his family.

 

As Harvey said, education is key to breaking the cycle of poverty. That is why I've created this Go Fund Me: to raise funds for the school in San José Calderas so the kids can get the education they need and deserve!

 

Guatemalan public schools are underfunded, meaning many of them, especially in rural areas like Calderas, cannot afford to hire teachers, janitors, repairmen, or buy basic materials such as books and pencils. CA Travelers donates money to pay 3 teachers every month, and the teachers pay for their own materials. The students keep the school clean by sweeping and mopping every morning before starting class. Also, the director of the school Carlos Chic, alongside teachers Billy Guzmán and Andair Chic, act as repairmen. This is how the school is managing to stay open. Without these donations from CA Travelers and the dedication of the teachers and students, the school would be forced to close, meaning there would be no schools in the area for middle and high school-aged kids. But the donations of only CA Travelers are not enough. We need support from even more kindhearted folks so we can keep the doors of the school open for years to come. This is where you come in!

Here’s what needs fixing (Pictures of these conditions are attached):

 

1. Our first step is to fix the toilets. The girl’s restroom is completely unusable, so everyone has to use the boy’s restroom. However, the boy’s room is filthy, and the toilet doesn’t work properly. There are buckets of water surrounding the toilet that are used to refill the tank when it needs to be flushed, since the tank does not refill automatically. With your donation, we will be able to buy new toilets for both restrooms and hire people to install them!

 

 

 

 

2. This school is also in need of tables, chairs, and desks for students and teachers. Most of the desks are broken, so, to temporarily fix it, the director Carlos Chic uses red tape to stick the parts together. If you have some furniture to donate, we would greatly appreciate it! If not, monetary donations would also be so, so helpful!

 

 

3. The next step is to fix the fence, paint the school and repair the storage room so we can use it as a classroom. The fence is in terrible shape, your contribution can help the school build a new fence, so all the equipment in the school is protected. Also, the school was built a long time ago so the paint is getting old. You can see in the picture that the old paint is flaking off. We would love to use your generous contribution to give the school a new coat.

4. Our fourth step is to fix the roof. The school’s building is very old so there are many holes in the roof and the ceilings. On some rainy days, especially Guatemala is entering the rainy season (May to Oct), teachers and students have to clean up puddles inside the classrooms. We would love to use your donations to fix the roof so teachers and students don’t have to worry when the rain comes.

 

5. Right now, the school does not have a library. The few books they have are kept in a cardboard box, and no one touches it. We want to change that and give the students the library they deserve! If you can donate some English or Spanish books, dictionaries, and bookshelves, it would help us move towards our goal! We would also greatly appreciate donations of notebooks, paper, pens, pencils, and other classroom materials.

 

6. After that, we would love to build a kitchen/food pantry for the kids. Most of their parents are working from early morning to late at night, meaning that sometimes they may not have time to prepare food for their kids to eat at school. This is detrimental to the students’ learning as studies show that hunger prevents kids from focusing in class. With this little kitchen, we can be sure that none of our students will go hungry and that they can get the most out of their education.

 

7. Another thing that would be a huge advantage to the kids is to have computers. Technological literacy is a vital skill to have in today’s job market, and we want our kids to have FULL ACCESS to computers so they can build those necessary skills. As part of the library, we want to also build a computer lab/ technology lab for the students. They would then be well equipped to find a stable job right after school and be able to provide a much better income for their families.

 

Thank you so much for reading about our project, and we hope you will find it in your heart to donate what you can. $5 is plenty!

 

Thank you from the bottoms of our hearts, from the students and teachers at Calderas, and from the staff at CA Travelers!