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Pueblo a Pueblo Blog

Right from Santiago Atitlán to your computer. Your window into our world. Thanks for reading and comments are welcome! ​

School Highlight: Nueva Vida

5/6/2016

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The main school building, with its Kaqchikel name K'ak'ak K'aslem
Nueva Vida School has about 260 students, ranging from preschool to 6th grade. The school is located in a community of the same name approximately an hour from Santiago Atitlan. The school and community are also known by the Kaqchikel name, K’ak’ak’ K’aslem, meaning “new life.” Nueva Vida is a small, rural community with limited economic opportunity, where the majority of families work as laborers on the nearby coffee and dairy plantations.

Pueblo a Pueblo first began working with Nueva Vida School in early 2015 with the Organic School Gardens and WASH in Schools projects. Unlike many of the other schools we work with, the school is  owned entirely by the local community, rather than by the Guatemalan Ministry of Education, meaning that community leaders are also committed to helping the school progress. Since day one of this new partnership, the school and the community have shown considerable dedication and leadership.

The WASH in Schools project was the first project implemented at the school, helping to address the school’s sanitation issues. Project Manager Tomas explained that “the situation at the school was very bad because they only had 4 latrines for all of the students.”  He called it “a worrisome situation,” and added that there was a “very unpleasant smell because of the hot climate.”
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The school's only running water source before WASH construction
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The new WASH facilities!
​Since the project began, the school has made great strides. After beginning WASH trainings and construction last spring, the students celebrated the inauguration of their new bathroom facilities in September. Teachers, students, and community members have been exceptionally active in promoting sanitation and hygiene at the school and in the community. So far, the community support group and the student WASH ambassadors have put on several events, including a community sanitation awareness march and a celebration for International Handwashing Day.
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As part of the WASH project, students clean up their community
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Celebrating International Handwashing Day
The Organic School Gardens project at Nueva Vida School has proved to be one of our most successful school garden partnerships yet. After planning the garden in the first half of the year, classes and trainings began this past summer. In its first 6 months, the garden produced a whopping 547 pounds of fruits and vegetables -- more than any other school garden produced in an entire year!
​
Organic School Gardens Project Manager, Ana, credits the school’s success to the commitment and involvement of teachers, students, and community members: “They are very responsive to any suggestions we might have and go above and beyond the goals they set for themselves monthly.”
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The flourishing school garden
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Proud students with some of their harvest
Most recently, we have worked with Nueva Vida School to implement our new Youth Leadership Project. The project, which officially began this January but first began as a pilot at the beginning of 2015, has brought a group of youth together to serve as community leaders in the organic school garden. So far, Pueblo a Pueblo staff have carried out several trainings with the group of youth leaders with great success.  

Ana explained that the youth have helped a lot in preparing and maintaining the garden and have learned many gardening and project management skills. She added, “Another benefit is that they serve as role models for the younger students, who see them getting involved and volunteering their time and effort to help out in the community.”

We are very excited by this new partnership with Nueva Vida School and cannot wait to see it thrive even more in the future!
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The youth leadership group in the office for training
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For Moms and Their Babies, Home Visits Make the Difference

5/5/2016

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Home visits are an integral part of our Maternal Child Health (MCH) project, because they let us follow up with the health and well-being of sponsored mothers and children. Project staff conduct home visits nearly every week of the year, for various reasons: to carry out regular evaluations, to reinforce the skills the mothers learned in trainings and to make sure they continue to attend trainings, and to check on the health and well-being of the mothers and their children.

Most recently, project staff have been conducting visits to follow up with the 10 children who visited our partner clinic, Rxiin Tnamet (re-sheen tin-a-met), in the past month to make sure they are taking their medicine properly and their health is improving.

Maternal Child Health Program Assistant, Rebeca Sosof, also explained that “because many mothers cannot read or write, it is important to do the follow up visit. Even though they they understand the doctor’s instructions at the clinic, sometimes they forget or misunderstand once they get home.”
If a child is still sick during this first follow-up visit, MCH project staff will give recommendations to the mother and conduct a second follow up visit to check on the health of the child.
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Rebeca on her way to a home visit
This month, our communications team accompanied Rebeca to a second follow-up visit with Dolores, a 17-year-old single mother and her one-year-old son, Josue. Dolores lives in Tzanchaj, a rural community on the outskirts of Santiago Atitlan, with her mother, father, and sister. She supports herself by selling her beadwork. The family has struggled to cover the costs of medical care in the past. 

When Josue became sick in January, Dolores was able to bring him to Clínica Rxiin Tnamet because of the support from Pueblo a Pueblo. At the clinic, the doctors diagnosed him with pharyngitis and gave him medicine to treat the infection. However, Dolores noticed that Josue had very little appetite because of his illness and was not eating enough. When she returned to the Rxiin Tnamet in March, the doctors diagnosed Josue with anorexia and gave him vitamins to stimulate his appetite.
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Rebeca visiting with Dolores and Josue
At the first follow-up visit with Dolores, Rebeca saw that Josue was still struggling to eat enough food despite some small improvement. She decided to come back for a second follow-up later in the month. Last week she went back for the second visit and was happy to see that Josué was improving. She said, “He is eating more foods besides just breastmilk, and little by little he is recuperating.” Josue has finished his medicine, but the family has continued to give him natural medicine to try to encourage his appetite more and soothe his stomach.
​

Rebeca used this second home visit as an opportunity to not only check on Josue’s health, but to give the family recommendations and encourage them to continue practicing the lessons they learned at trainings in their home. She will continue to follow up with Dolores and other sponsored mothers through more home visits in the coming weeks, making a big difference in the lives of these families.
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Giving recommendations to Dolores and her mother
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Pueblo a Pueblo has been awarded GuideStar's 2019 Gold Seal for Transparency, meets the BBB Wise Giving Alliance's Standards for Charity Accountability, and was named a finalist for the National Coffee Association's 2019 Origin Charity of the Year award.
  • HOME
  • ABOUT US
    • OUR MISSION
    • OUR TEAM
    • BOARD OF DIRECTORS
    • OUR SUPPORTERS >
      • COFFEE INDUSTRY PARTNERS
    • Annual Report
    • FINANCIAL RESPONSIBILITY >
      • AUDITS & FORMS 990
    • Partnership with Natik
    • Our COVID-19 Response
  • PROGRAMS
    • WHAT WE DO
    • WOMEN'S RIGHT TO HEALTH >
      • MATERNAL CHILD HEALTH
      • WOMEN'S HEALTH CHAMPIONS
    • SCHOOL HEALTH, EDUCATION, AND NUTRITION >
      • WATER, SANITATION, AND HYGIENE IN SCHOOLS
      • PRIMARY EDUCATION SCHOLARSHIPS
      • PATHWAYS TO LITERACY
      • SCHOOL NUTRITION
      • ORGANIC TEACHING GARDEN
    • SUSTAINABLE LIVELIHOODS >
      • BEEKEEPING
      • YOUTH LEADERSHIP
      • WOMEN ENTREPRENEURS
  • BLOG
  • MULTIMEDIA
    • IN THE NEWS
    • PHOTOS AND VIDEOS
  • DONATE
  • CONTACT