MAYA PEOPLES - Safe Home & School Support

QUETALTENANGO, Guatemala

Purpose: Safe Home & School Support

Start Date: March, 2017

Funding Level: $25,000

Lives Directly Impacted: 188

SUMMARY

Inti Raymi Fund visited Guatemala and provided financial support into the local non-profit social-trekking organization called Quetzal-Trekkers. This organization’s total trekking fees help support the local safe home and school called EDELAC for Indigenous Mayan Youth in Quetaltenango, Guatamala. Our funds were used for improvements within the safe home and school as well as for needed upgrades in the trekking equipment which is used by the all-volunteer staff as well as the visiting trekker clients who's fees support the school and safe home.

CENTRAL AMERICA’S PAINFUL HISTORY:

If you want to fully understand most of the reasons for the poverty and crime in Central America and in Guatemala, this requires you to revisit history and familiarize yourself with the past colonizations of Central America by Spain from roughly 1521 up until independence in 1821. By the late 1800’s a new economic colonizer, United Fruit, helped by the US government and its military, appeared and swindled most of the Indigenous Peoples and Mestizos (“mixed people”) out of their native lands and their future economic sustainability by creating “Banana Republics” in Central America. These enormous land grabs turned the Indigenous Peoples and Mestizos from land owners/operators into peasant workers on lands which previously were owned by them. United Fruit attempted to mask its “identity and vile past” by creating multiple subsequent subsidiaries like Chiquita Banana. These prolific land grabs and genocides, caused the Indigenous and Mestizo Peoples of Central America to not have a chance at individual prosperity and hope. This perpetual 400 year marginalization and oppression by Spain then indirectly by the USA with its unscrupulous businessmen of United Fruit, caused the Central American People to lose all hope. Out of desperation, some resort to crime and violence, and many resort to mass illegal migration to the USA as their only coping mechanism.

QUETZAL – TREKKERS NON-PROFIT ORGANIZATION, SCHOOL & SAFE HOME SUMMARY

The Inti Raymi Fund recently visited a wonderfully orchestrated example of “Sustainable Adventure Tourism” for Social Causes and improvement in Guatemala. A totally volunteer trekking & mountain climbing organization, which “honestly” supports a local safe home & school. All profits from guiding services, including tips, go towards the safe home and their children’s activities and the school’s annual operating expenses. These volunteers yield roughly 70% of the school & safe home’s annual budget! The remaining 30% is up to supporters like you.

QUETZAL – TREKKER’S STORY TOLD BY THEM

We are the only all non-profit, all volunteer-run trekking and outdoors association in Guatemala. In fact, apart from our sister organizations Quetzaltrekkers Nicaragua and Condortrekkers in Bolivia, we might just be the only organization of our kind anywhere in the world!

Quetzaltrekkers was founded in 1995 as a means of self-sustainable, grassroots fundraising for the functioning of the Associación Escuela de la Calle (EDELAC), with the overall aim of combating the unfortunate reality of children both living and working on the streets of Quetzaltenango. Our job is to see that tourism dollars directly benefit those Guatemalans that need them most: street children and children at risk of becoming such. We do this by running tourist-oriented, guided-treks through the beautiful Guatemalan Highlands: hence the slogan, “Hike and Help.”

Quetzaltrekkers/Escuela de la Calle was the brainchild of a very small group of Guatemalan and foreign social workers looking to improve the livelihood of Xela’s vulnerable youth. As one of the first operations to offer organized treks out of Quetzaltenango, Quetzaltrekkers embarked on the tough process of building and improving trails, establishing relationships with rural highland communities, as well as acquiring the necessary equipment and volunteers. Meanwhile, our aid work from profits began in the streets, teaching classes, providing support to the children living and working in the city’s main bus terminal.

From these humble beginnings, Quetzaltrekkers has grown to become the largest trekking operator in Quetzaltenango and possibly all of Guatemala. As interest in our treks has expanded over our twenty-one year history, so has our ability to help Quetzaltenango’s street children. In 1997, we started a school in a rented space in which we could offer the kids a semi-formal education. In 1999, we opened Hogar Abierto: a dormitory that continues to act as an immediate crisis centre which often becomes a permanent home for local, troubled youth whom lack families that can provide basic necessities. In 2004, the school was relocated to a purpose-built complex in the impoverished barrio of Las Rosas where we are able to offer a full educational curriculum to disadvantaged children from across the city in addition to Xela’s outlying regions as well as now pay the teachers that work there. In their turn, these milestones have been underpinned by a number of EDELAC-run programs that focus on drug-rehabilition, family-building, and community solidarity.

With the constant financial support of Quetzaltrekkers, EDELAC is currently helping over 200 children in the fields of education, housing, nutrition, counseling, rehabilitation and medical-care. The expanding alumni of EDELAC´s programs have gone onto become successful accountants, carpenters, guides, parents, and teachers (some of whom now teach at EDELAC).

Despite our successes, there remains much to be done, we are constantly looking to expand our reach and impact in the Quetzaltenango region. Although we continue to grow and mature as an organization, much of our work continues to occur on the street-level as a beacon of hope for the region’s most destitute children and youth.

WHAT THE INTI RAYMI FUND DID

The symbiotic partners of Quetzal-Trekkers and the Safe Home & School decided “democratically” what they needed most, fully utilizing the $25,000 Inti Raymi Fund Grant.

We encourage you to visit their web site or, better yet, go to Guatemala and Trek to Support this Great Cause

http://www.quetzaltrekkers.com/xela/

Below images 4-8 by safe home workers, remainder by Inti Raymi Fund

TEAM MEMBERS

Katia, Brin, Chimu, Paul, Kendall & Guadelupe Pos

COMMUNITY & INTI RAYMI FUND'S INVOLVEMENT

MAYA PEOPLES 10

MAYA PEOPLES 11

MAYA PEOPLES 12

MAYA PEOPLES 13

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