Scholarships

Meeting with the mothers of San Juan

2012-01-31T18:37:00.000-08:00

Today Carmen and our projects coordinator visited the mothers of the scholarship recipients of San Juan (a community near Xela). While the general goal of the meeting was to ask about the progress of the scholarship recipients and hand out the scholarships, part of our scholarship program meeting with and encouraging the mothers of the scholarship recipients. School is only obligatory for six years in Guatemala- through primary school. However, many children do not even attend school for the minimum of 6 years. Today Carmen talked to the women about the importance of of mothers encouraging their children to go to school.

Meeting with the mothers of San Juan

2012-01-30T18:40:00.000-08:00

Lunch for los becados!

2011-12-16T18:02:00.000-08:00

On the 14^th of December the scholarship recipients and their families gathered at Pop Wuj to celebrate the close of the school year. Carmen, a partner of the organization and our social worker gave a moving speech to all of the students about the importance of staying in school and how happy it made her to see the students persist and succeed in their education. The other partners of Pop Wuj echoed this sentiment in heartfelt speeches, encouraging and praising the scholarship students.

This year, we had 5 students graduate from secondary school. For what was and is a proud moment for these students, we had a small graduation ceremony. Every graduate was given the opportunity to speak and every graduate spoke of their gratefulness of the scholarship program and proclaimed passionately to the other students the importance of staying in school.

However, the Scholarship lunch was not limited to eating and passing out gifts and school supplies. Pop Wuj also opened its clinic in order to give all of the children a basic physical and to attend to the needs of the scholarship recipients who needed more care.

Aside from basic care, the volunteers of the medical program put together a nutrition lesson for the children to demonstrate the role proper nutrition plays in every day life. This was a very important piece of our scholarship day as nutrition plays an invaluable role in brain development and the ability to focus in class.

At the end of the day, everyone gathered to receive school supplies for the upcoming year at school and to say their goodbyes to the partners of Pop Wuj.