Guatemala 2011
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September 20, 6:30 – 7:30 p.m.: Important Informational Meeting in Vollum 3
Trip leaders: Spencer White, Christina Meyerhoff
NGO Key Collaborators: Joan Williams (director of Mundo Exchange), Dr. Andrew Zechnich
Approximate Dates: March 9 – 20, 2011
Enrollment: 6 OES students, 6 CG students. (Priority given to students having completed at least Spanish 2)
Cost: $1,800 – $2,000
Six OES and six Catlin Gabel high school students will work together to improve the lives of children and families in Chajul, Guatemala. This trip will mark the first global collaboration between CG and OES. All leaders have traveled together to Chajul, allowing us a swift welcome into the local community.
Located in the western highlands, this town of 15,000 people is Mayan Ixil, one of 23 distinct Guatemalan cultures with a unique language and belief system. Ixil is the local dialect, but Spanish is the language of business and cross-cultural communication. This indigenous community is attempting to modernize while maintaining its cultural traditions.
We’ll work closely with Limitless Horizons, a local non-governmental organization that helps families by building efficient stoves, starting vegetable gardens, providing tuition to young students, and helping in a one-room school house that provides Ixil-Spanish bilingual education to the poorest families in the community. (Fewer than 1% of children graduate from high school and 5% from middle school, and 75% of the adult population is illiterate.) After one night in Antigua, we will travel to Chajul and begin working on various service projects. Due to the intense need for medical supplies and because we’ll have Dr. Andy Zechnich with us, we will likely collect as many medical supplies as we can carry and hand-deliver these items to the local clinic in Chajul.
Video of Spencer White's trip to Chajul in 2007
