The challenges of receiving an education are especially difficult in Guatemalan villages like San Martín, where money is scarce and children are often needed to work in the fields or tend to siblings. Illiteracy rates reach 80%.

In San Martín, many children who do have the opportunity to be in school struggle because they speak Mám in their home, rather than Spanish which is spoken in school. Parents often cannot read and are unable to assist with studies, and there is limited access to textbooks and school supplies.

El Centro de Estudios (Study Center) being launched this summer provides the children of San Martín with a comfortable, safe place to study, read, do their homework, and talk with one another about books and ideas. With donations and small grants, we have begun to furnish the Study Center and have purchased school texts and materials.

Of course, to make the study center complete, we must also fund the instructor who supervises the room and assists the children. The chosen instructor -- a young woman whose education was supported through PEX ("Proyecto Educativo de Xela Aid"), the Xela Aid tuition program -- recently graduated with a teaching certificate. Juana Lopez Gomez reads and writes both Spanish and Mám, knows the children in the village, and wants to work with us to develop programs whereby the children can work with one another and can use El Centro de Estudios to its fullest advantage.