Programs & Activities We Support

Organic School Gardens
The area surrounding Santiago Atitalan is among one of the the poorest regions in Guatemala. In a region where many households live on less than a dollar per day and do not own livestock, families face severe seasonal food shortages, known as "los Meses Flacos" (the thin months).

Pueblo a Pueblo has worked in this region since 2005 and has been involved in school nutrition and providing healthy meals to needy children. Our new partnership with Green Mountain Coffee only adds to this effort bringing life-changing aid to child nutrition and families who need our help the most. Our shared goal is to improve nutrition and strengthen food security.

Through a two year pilot project grant, we seek to teach 500 children in the Escuela Mixta Rural de Panabaj about organic gardening and basic nutrition. We will help the school community increase food supplies through education and diversification of crops to include foods with higher nutritional values.

With these important programs, Pueblo a Pueblo and Green Mountain Coffee are helping the community of Panabaj build a healthier, more sustainable future. Our food security efforts teach children and their families ways to avoid food shortages and increase nutrition, while our development projects also support educational opportunities and improve family health.

Elementary School Libraries
School libraries are virtually nonexistent in rural Guatemala. Children’s books are luxury items and there is no way for children to explore independent learning, to fill their intellectual curiosity, and develop a passion for reading. Teachers lack the expertise and resources to establish libraries. As a result, even if children have acquired reading skills, they have nothing to read. Our most recent project, involves developing and furnishing a library for the Panabaj and Chuk Muk Elementary School s. This project is being supported by a partnership between Pueblo a Pueblo , the Panabaj and Chuk Muk Municipal Elementary School s of Santiago Atitlan, the community, and its families. We all work together to ensure greater local responsibility for education and literacy.

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Panabaj School Lunch Program
Guatemala has one of the worst nutritional conditions in Latin America (Unicef 2008) 67% of indigenous Guatemalan children suffer from chronic malnutrition. Chronic malnutrition in mothers results in low birth weight children putting them at an early disadvantage. For three years Pueblo a Pueblo has provided a school lunch program for all the primary school children attending the Panabaj School — often times their only nutritious meal of the day. Better nutrition has resulted in improved health and a better attitude towards learning. It has kept the children in school, reduced their visits to the hospital and increased their well being.

The Daniele Agostino Derossi Foundation has supported the school lunch program for the past three years through a matching grant.

• How it works

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Widows Housing Program
Due to the generous support of the Cole Family Foundation, we are able to facilitate the purchase of land and construction of permanent homes for widows in the Panabaj neighborhood. These women lost their husbands in the 2005 mudslides. Children from these families attend the Panabaj Municipal Elementary School and take part in our education sponsorship program.