Projects: Guatemala

The Ministry of Light and Truth (Ministerio Luz y Verdad) is a Christian organization dedicated to helping the needs of Guatemala City's poor. Currently, the ministry rents a house where they provide children with tutoring two evenings per week, hold a parent group one night per week, an adolescent group one night per week, as well as hold church services. They also work with parents via home visits and school partnerships in order to strengthen parenting skills and promote more sustainable change in their children.

They also:
  • Coordinate scholarships
  • Provide field trips every 3-4 months
  • Plans to start a soccer team for the kids
  • Provide the families with some nutritious food
USLA’s Role:
  • Collect books for a library at the ministry
  • Provide funding for 1-2 soccer teams
  • Collect computers and install free educational software for tutoring and skills development
  • Provide consultation for working with families
  • Provide consultation for teaching children conflict resolution
  • USLA provides scholarships for the children served by the ministry. Although education is technically free in Guatemala, many parents cannot afford the cost of uniforms, shoes, and school supplies. These scholarships ($160 each) pay for all of these necessities as well as haircuts per student per year.

The children who attend the ministry are at high risk for becoming involved in gang activity, prostitution, drug use, or other criminal activities. Providing an education for these children gives them an opportunity to break the cycle of poverty.

Special Education School in Jocotenango is an informal school started by parents of children with disabilities in Jocotenango, Guatemala. The educational system in Guatemala does not provide educational support for children with disabilities, and these parents believe their children deserve a chance at an education. Many of the children have significant disabilities, which means they would likely be kicked out of a regular school. These parents believe everyone -including children with disabilities- has something to offer the world.

The school takes place every MWF from 2-4:30 at one parent’s home. Although not a formal school, allows the kids to gain literacy, math, and vocational skills that will enable them to become successful adults later in life Founded and is run by a parent with a teaching degree.

USLA’s Role:
  • Provide the school with educational materials
  • Provide the school with consultation
  • Provide the school with laptops and educational software
  • Provide cognitive evaluations free of charge (future goal)
  • Advocate for and find other service providers

New Life with Education special education school (a future project) established for children who can't gain an education in the overcrowded Guatemalan school system. This inability is either due to the teacher's inability to teach them or the ridicule of the other students. Some of the children have severe hearing or vision deficits, learning disabilities, spina bifida, cerebral palsy, Down syndrome, or attention disorders. Learn more at NewLifeGuatemala.com.

Claire, a bilingual school psychologist and cofounder of USLA, plans to begin traveling to New Life to provide cognitive assessments for the children who attend the school. This will assist New Life in developing educational goals for its students. Riverside Publishing has generously donated a cognitive test in Spanish so that this project would be possible.

Projects: Mexico

Tarahumara School Project (past project)

In 2008 and 2009 the Rotary Club of Cuauhtémoc in Chihuahua, Mexico began collecting books and computers for under funded schools in the mountains of Chihuahua, Mexico. The majority of these schools educate children who are Tarahumara, an indigenous group of northern Mexico. USLA provided the Rotary club with seven computers and 200 books (in Spanish) to distribute to the schools.

Support for Schools and Educational Projects along the Mexican Border

We are currently partnering with the University of Texas, El Paso Center for Inter-American and Border Studies. This partnership will focus, in part, on distribution of books and other educational materials to schools in Juarez and other Mexican border areas. Moira Murphy, Ph.D, a professor at UTEP, is helping us to gather and distribute computers.

USLA’s Role:
  • Collect and distribute computers installed with learning software
  • Collect and distribute books in English and Spanish
  • Collect and distribute other learning material

We are installing free software in Spanish that allows children to learn letters, numbers, vocabulary, reading, and math skills. We are using Edubuntu software.

Projects: Other Locations

The Cooperative Association of States for Scholarships (CASS) program at The University of Northern Colorado, under the direction of Madeline Milian, Ph.D.

The CASS program was created in 1989 to improve the academic skills and practices of teachers in Central America and the Caribbean. It is funded by USAID and administered by Georgetown University. It provides opportunities for teachers in rural areas in Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras, and the Dominican Republic to attend a U.S. institution, and complete a specialized program that meets the educational needs of the CASS teachers.

USLA’s role:
  • Support these teachers with materials that would allow them to fully implement what they’ve learned through their classes at UNC
  • Claire is an adjunct professor teaching leadership strategies to the CASS teachers

Our Collaborators and Supporters Include: