Adopt-a-Village in Guatemala

Volunteer with Adopt-a-Village.  We offer you the opportunity to provide hands-on help while witnessing the realities of life in this remote, impoverished, but beautiful corner of Guatemala. Volunteers can share their time and skills and work side-by-side with our Mayan partners. Upon their return home, they can then play a vital role in spreading the word about our work and the acute needs of the children we serve. We welcome instructors in carpentry, construction, cabinet and furniture making, and machine maintenance. We also need electricians, organic farmers, and Spanish language teachers, as well as computer technicians, and tutors. Volunteers are responsible for travel to the work sites (a 12- to 18 hour drive from Guatemala City) and contribute a modest fee for room and board during their stay.

Click here for an application.

Volunteers from coast to coast provide critical support for AAV in a variety of capacities. Lend a hand with Spanish-English translations, clerical tasks, Internet research, publicity, marketing, mailings, letter-writing, graphics, selling Mayan crafts and art, knitting and crocheting.  Or propose something else–we welcome your ideas, creativity and energy!

Kids Helping Kids

Some of our most enthusiastic volunteers are children. These young volunteers collect loose change, wash cars, do tasks around the home, and sell lemonade and snacks. They are endlessly creative in finding ways to raise money to help their friends in Guatemala. Alex (in photo) and his brother and two sisters have been involved in social entrepreneurship for over a year–their business–a lemonade stand.  The family sponsors a child, Eluvia, in Santa Elena and their earnings support that sponsorship.

Bryan, youngest of all our Adopt-a-Village volunteers, is a seven-year old Guatemalan-born boy who lives with his American family in South Carolina. Though small in size, he is big in raising funds to help impoverished children in his birth country,  raising close to $2,000 over the past two years by selling Mayan handicrafts and baked goods at school fairs.

It all began with the annual “international peace project,” an educational program at his Montessori school intended to build awareness of poverty and need in developing countries. Bryan decided he wanted to sponsor a boy his age through Adopt-a-Village in Guatemala.  It would be up to him to raise the funds. Since then, he has engaged his  brother, Angel.  Both now sponsor a child.  (See full story on our March 7, 2011 Blog).

The 7^th grade Language Arts/Read 180 students at Round Lake Middle School in Illinois study the topic “child labor around the world.”  Their studies inspired them to reach out to Mayan children who labor in the Guatemalan coffee farms for pennies a day.

In April, they begin planning their third fund raiser. From raising funds through a raffle the first year, they moved to an innovative idea the second year—“the power shower”–a newer version of the dunk tank.  It was a wildly successful fund raiser and the students doubled their revenue from the previous year!

To add to the fun, teachers volunteered to be “showered.”  Melissa Lenhoff , the Read 180 teacher, dressed up in curlers and a housecoat and braved an icy dousing.  Enthusiastic students ran the whole show, from creating promotional posters to organizing and managing all the logistics.

On behalf of the Mayan children in Guatemala, we thank the Round Lake Middle School students and wish them success in their third event this coming April.

Venice/Nokomis students of the local Interact Club, dressed in the beautifully hand-loomed woven blouses of the Maya,  presented the Adopt-a-Village scholarship program to the local Rotary Club.

The Interactorers worked throughout the school term selling Mayan handicrafts and collecting donations.  They proudly reached their  fund raising  of $2,000.  Their earnings provided a full scholarship for an impoverished Mayan studens at the Adopt-a-Village Mayan Center for Education and Development.  The Club is continuing their efforts in 2012.  Great job!

Jitendra Joshi is an avid volunteer for Adopt-a-Village, regularly helping to update our website.  He lives in India where he earned his Masters Degree in Computer Applications and has a wide range of experience in both web and software development.

Jitendra says that he considers himself a “code junkie”– lucky for Adopt-a-Village because he maneuvers us through the WordPress system we use. When he’s not working on the computer or learning new skills and technologies related to his work, he may be found reading philosophical books and playing chess.

He says, “I chose to volunteer for Adopt-a-Village because I know that I am helping to improve the future of children who are in desperate need of public help and services.”  Thank you Jitendra, we truly appreciate your volunteer efforts.