Roots and Wings International promotes elementary through university education in rural Guatemala. They work with indigenous youth whose families earn $2 per day growing coffee. Their work is rooted in recognizing the importance of culturally responsive education that empowers students to connect their cultural identity with sustainable social and economic development.
Student Scholarship: Roots & Wings International provides full-tuition university scholarships to indigenous youth from families that earn $2 or less per day. Their scholars come from coffee-growing communities in rural Guatemala, and they are the first in their families to study past elementary school. The students study in cities near their village and remain vested in their communities in Guatemala. RWI require their scholars to attend Roots & Wings International monthly development meetings. These meetings provide the students space to discuss their struggles and their aspirations while also providing an opportunity to apply their education to development issues in their communities.
After-School Elementary Tutoring Program: Sixty percent of the Guatemalan population does not graduate from elementary school, and rural communities suffer from up to 70% illiteracy. RWI’s After-School Elementary Tutoring Program helps children aged 5 to 11 to finish school. Their tutoring center, in the village of Pasac in Nahuala, Solola, about 3½ hours from Guatemala City, serves 250 children. The center is open every weekday, and each student comes in twice weekly to work with tutors in their native language K’iche’ and in Spanish.
Computer Lab: The Computer Lab officially started in May 2009. It has five computers currently available for the students and public in the village of Pasac in Nahuala, Solola (population: 1,500). There has been an overwhelmingly positive response to the Computer Lab program. Children of all ages and adults wait in line for their turn to learn how to use a computer.
Construction of a University Preparatory School: Rural indigenous youth have little access to public schools in Guatemala. The few private schools that do exist are both financially inaccessible and too few in number to satisfy the demand for education in the region. Roots & Wings International is raising funds to construct a university preparatory school in the rural highlands of Nahualá, Sololá in the next three years. This school will meet some of the demand for education among impoverished youth in the region, and its curriculum will be based in the culture of the communities.
Development Meetings: Each month, Roots & Wings International hosts a community development meeting attended by their students and other youth from the region. Because the long-term goals of Roots & Wings revolve around sustainable development, they believe it is important to provide a space for their students to bring ideas to life by applying them to their individual communities. Meeting themes have included environmental degradation, business development, entrepreneurship, political involvement, family education, and AIDS/HIV education. The meeting themes are selected by their students based on what they perceive to be the particular needs of their communities. They invite an expert from around Guatemala to speak at each meeting on the chosen theme, and encourage their students to engage the issues. This forum gives their students the space to brainstorm about how to use their education to confront real issues faced in their own communities.
Counseling: Students receive counseling in their native language, K’iche’. Higher education is uncharted territory for most of the communities where they work, and their students face overt discrimination in the classroom because of their indigenous identity. Accordingly, Roots & Wings International employs a full-time college counselor to provide technical and emotional support to the students in their native language, K’iche’. The following support is provided, academic tutoring, home visits once per semester, advocacy for the students when encountering any difficulties at school, family counseling to encourage family support throughout the academic process, and office hours held for counseling of their scholars and any youth in the region.
To learn more about Roots and Wings, please visit their website.
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