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This article has been excerpted from the Inter Press Service News Agency (IPS) on March 3, 2010. To read the full piece, please click here.
GUATEMALA CITY, Mar 3, 2010 (IPS) – Guatemala knows that when it comes time to demonstrate compliance with the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), a set of global anti-poverty and development target to be met by 2015, it will make a poor showing.
Along with the rest of the world’s governments, authorities in this impoverished Central American nation committed themselves at the United Nations Millennium Summit in 2000 to halve the proportion of people living in extreme poverty by 2015, from 1990 levels.
In 1989, 20 percent of the Guatemalan population was living in extreme poverty. At the start of this century, the MDG poverty goal appeared to be within reach, because by 2000 absolute poverty had been reduced to 16 percent of the population, which currently stands at 13 million people.
But by 2004, the extreme poverty rate had risen again, to an even higher level than in 1989: 21.5 percent, according to the Secretariat of Planning and Programming’s latest report on progress towards the MDGs, drawn up in 2006.
And things have only gotten worse since then, with the knock-on effects of the global economic crisis that originated in the United States in 2008.
A 2009 report by the U.N. Development Programme (UNDP) reported the drop in remittances sent home by migrant workers abroad and the rise in unemployment and of Guatemalans deported from the United States, among the impacts of the crisis in this country.
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The following excerpt is from a January 28, 2010 article published by Planet Green. To read the article in its entirety, please click here.
You’d never know it just from looking, but the new bright orange schoolhouse in Granados, Guatemala has walls built with used plastic bottles—and so much other plastic waste that the team who built it had to go to neighboring villages to collect waste because they used up all the trash in their own.
Peace Corps volunteer Laura Kutner was inspired to start the project because of the plastic trash that she noticed everywhere in Guatemala, and because schools had classrooms with no walls. So she borrowed the idea of using bottles as a construction material from Pura Vida, and with materials and labor from local businesses as well as help from Hug it Forward, they set to work…
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The following excerpt is from an article published by the Rainforest Alliance. To read the article in its entirety, please click here.
For Manfredo Lippman, whose family has owned Finca Ona since 1966, coffee farming is as much about people and the environment as it is about growing the aromatic bean. His estate farm in northwest Guatemala provides employment, education and basic healthcare to hundreds of families, whereas the streams that run through it supply drinking water to the city of Coatepeque, and its more than 1,000 acres (405 hectares) of protected forest are home to an array of wildlife. Lippman’s commitment to community and ecology were essential for getting Finca Ona Rainforest Alliance Certified, which distinguishes farms that comply with a strict social and environmental standard.
The Rainforest Alliance, an international organization that works to protect ecosystems and the people and wildlife that depend on them by transforming land-use practices and consumer behavior, has certified thousands of coffee farms in a dozen countries together with its partners in the Sustainable Agriculture Network. During the four decades since the Lippman family purchased Finca Ona, which was founded in 1850, Manfredo and his daughter, Margaret de Vila, have introduced a series of innovations to make the farm a better place to work and live. They built and support a school with six teachers and a health post with a full-time nurse. They also maintain four soccer fields and provide uniforms and transportation for the local team, which has won 40 trophies.
The most obvious innovation, however, is the modified ski lift…
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here is an account of countries around the world with educational shortcomings. Guatemala is on the list of countries where over 30% of young adults have fewer than four years of education. I encourage everyone to skim the article as it’s really quite eye opening.
I think some of the solutions discussed in the article would be a good start, but I question how well they would solve the root causes of a struggling education system. Private sector education is difficult to roll out to the broad community, which presents an accessibility issue. Performance related pay might actually dissuade potential candidates from entering the profession.
Once again, the article can be found here
The following excerpt is from a February 24, 2010 article published by The Latin American Herald Tribune. Click here to read the article in its entirety.
GUATEMALA CITY – Thousands of teachers from all of Guatemala’s 22 provinces occupied the capital’s Constitution Square on Wednesday to press the government for a 16 percent pay raise.
While union official Rumulado Maldonado told Efe that some 70,000 teachers were taking part, the number in Constitution Square was closer to 5,000.
The head of the ANM union that convened the protest, Joviel Acevedo, said the teachers will remain camped out in the square in tents and cardboard boxes…
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The following excerpt is from a February 24, 2010 article published by 7 News Belize. Click here to read the article in its entirety.
The Belize National Teachers Union held a Council of Management meeting today – but at news time – we were unable to find out from the union what is the decision going forward. But in Guatemala, those teachers aren’t playing. Thousands of them have shut down all major roadways demanding a 16% pay increase. And in Melchor those major roadways meant shutting down the bridge between Belize and Guatemala.
General Manager of the Border Management Agency Gonzalo Rosado told us that no vehicles were allowed to pass into Belize form the Guatemalan side today…
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The following article was published in the Guatemala Times on February 13, 2010.
By BARBARA SCHIEBER: From the characterization of subsistence hunting to its communitarian management. Applied participative research with Maya-Q´eqchi´ communities in the Ecoregion Lachuá, Guatemala
How did it all start:
Wildlife hunting for domestic consumption (subsistence hunting) is a very common activity that is part of the cultural identity of many indigenous communities of Guatemala’s rural area, but it has been poorly studied in our country. However, unmanaged subsistence hunting is a serious threat for wild animal populations and can cause drastic effects and negative alterations in the natural dynamics of ecosystem.
The Ecoregión Lachua is home to 55 Maya-Q´eqchi´ communities that still have agriculture and forest use practices, such as wildlife hunting, that are traditionally carried out in a way that contributes to the sustainability of these natural resources. Maya-Q´eqchi´ cosmovision has many traditional elements that promote and favor a responsible and respectful use of nature.
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The following excerpt is from an article published in the January, 2010 newsletter from Avivará. To read the article in its entirety, please click here.
Recently it seems, they have been “taking it to the streets.” With the announcement in December that the government would be cutting 32,000 jobs in health, education and police due to the failure of the Guatemalan congress to approve a fiscal reform initiative, teachers blocked the major roadways into Guatemala City for several days in protest.
The Guatemala Teacher’s Guild has been meeting over the last several weeks with Bienvenido Argueta, the newly appointed Guatemalan Minister of Education, to determine what supplies will be available for the start of school, including such items as basic teaching materials and snacks for students. Even though these meetings have been held behind closed doors, it was leaked that the Guild will likely call for a general teacher’ strike if their demands for adequate funding are not met. Argueta urged the teacher’s not to hinder the beginning of the school year, but also acknowledged their right to demonstrate…
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The following excerpt is from a January 29, 2010 article published by the Latin American Times. To read the article in its entirety, click here.
GUATEMALA CITY – Thousands of Guatemalan public school teachers impeded the start of the 2010 school year, staging a large demonstration on Friday to demand an increase in the education budget.
“More than 40,000 teachers from all over the country” took part in the demonstration, which covered the main streets of Guatemala City’s historical center, the leader of the ANM union, Joviel Acevedo, said.
A police spokesman, however, gave a much lower estimate, saying the number of demonstrators was “between 5,000 and 10,000.”
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The following excerpt is from a Janaury 7, 2010 article published by Inside Costa Rica. To read the article in its entirety, please click here.
GUATEMALA – The Guatemalan teachers” guild announced on Wednesday that it would declare itself in permanent assembly to analyze measures that exert pressure Congress to increase the sector’s budget this year.
Teachers went to public schools on Monday to finish the preparations for the new school year, the beginning of which was scheduled for January 29.
They have been threatening since December to perform a strike if the legislature refuses to increase the budget, after failing to adopt the regulation proposed by the government and the State being forced to work with the same amount that in 2009.
This stance was supported by incapacity of the parliamentarians to approve, before their year-end break, a government fiscal reform initiative.
With this reform, they expect to obtain money from increasing some taxes to help finance several essential public sectors in the country, as education and health, both free, and security.
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