Government-Certified Computer Courses For Guatemalan Student

Great news! In July, the Chaptops Tech Center in Tactic, Guatemala received final approval from the Guatemalan Ministry of Education to teach courses in computer skills and English. Students will receive official certificates issued by the Ministry! We hope to enroll 30 students in our first classes in January.

We received a license to teach three courses:

• Basic English

• Keyboarding

• Business Computing Skills

Since our goal is to mobilize local resources, our services are rarely free, but we strive to make everything as accessible as possible. The tuition for the computer courses will be $13 per month, and English will cost $32 per month. Even those amounts are challenging for many families, so we hope to offer full and partial scholarships to as many students as possible. But we do have bills to pay!

We’d like to start teaching all three classes in January with ten students each. Our goal of $2000 will pay enrollment fees and tuition for all of them for three months. Especially since it’s our first time, we’d like to be able to advertise scholarships at local and village schools before the school year ends in October.

Chaptops, a registered 401c3 non-profit (TIN 88-2416363), was founded in June 2022 to make computers available to needy students in Alta Verapaz, the poorest part of Guatemala. Most children here enter school able to speak only an indigenous Mayan language.

We have shipped more than 300 used and refurbished laptops, donated by local companies and purchased with cash donations, to the town of Tactic, where they have been rented to needy students at an affordable rate around $11 per month. The revenue has allowed us to employ two local staff members and to pay for our storefront. We have also placed around 50 computers at a secondary school in a remote off-grid area.

As a sign of local interest in our work, our landlord has been investing in us by giving a significant discount on our rent. And as a sign of our success, he recently told us “Wow, you are doing amazingly well! I’m going to charge you market rent in your next lease!” Success has its perils!

Chaptops is a mashup of chapín, a popular nickname for Guatemalans, and laptops.