Central America

We are going to Central America at the beginning of October for nearly six months, returning just after Easter.

Part of why we are going is to volunteer on a couple of community library/literacy projects for Mayan children and families in rural Guatemala. These communities suffered greatly under Reagan’s war in Central America in the 1980s. Whole Mayan communities killed or maltreated by both the government army and rebels. Mayan communities are still marginalised in a society dominated by the Hispanic-mixed majority. However, many are trying to rebuild themselves, some with help from NGOs, some as small-scale volunteer projects initiated by individuals in the communities themselves. Many children do not go to school after about 10 or 11 because their families cannot afford the £30 per year secondary school fees or allow them time away from working on the land to feed themselves. About 50% of the Guatemalan population can't read apart from the simplest words. Books are relatively very expensive and libraries scarce.

We will both be volunteering on a project called Ix-canaan in the north of the country during November and December. They have raised funds to build a clinic, library, internet centre and women’s cultural centre. There are more details of their work here – http://ixcanaan.blogspot.com

Georgia will then become a volunteer mobile librarian on a biblio bus run by Child Aid in January. This takes books to different Mayan villages once a month for children to borrow. They also have reading sessions. http://www.child-aid.org/wa/child/aid/C13

We will be posting our experiences and photos here as regularly as we can. We hope you can check us out now and again.

Love, Bill and Georgia