Asociación Manabí supports learning and education in values in Guatemala

The population served by this project, supported by Fundación MAPFRE, is from the most marginalized areas of the Guatemala Department. It includes extremely deprived rural communities made up of mixed-race and indigenous people. They have unstable jobs for which they receive basic wages or rely on domestic agricultural economies. The families are large, generally with more than six members. Children living in the slums of Guatemala City live in troubled environments marked by petty crime, drug trafficking and “maras” (organized gangs dedicated to extortion). And the boys and girls who live in rural communities suffer from permanent poverty and marginalization simply because they belong to the Guatemalan indigenous group.

This situation of marginalization has a knock-on effect on the school environment: schools are located very far away and there is often only one teacher for many classes, generating educational precariousness that leads not only to delays, but also to a lack of enthusiasm for learning.

The project includes after-school support activities, both face-to-face and online, run by volunteers for children and young people with the greatest learning difficulties. Fundación MAPFRE supports this initiative by offering school support material to reinforce and stimulate learning; specific resources that integrate reading and writing, plastic arts and mathematics, and materials for working on the values of coexistence based on rights and responsibilities and self-care, as a strategy to prevent violence and improve protection levels for minors.

To improve the school performance of children affected by poor nutrition, a target population of 200 children will be monitored, ensuring the continuity of nutritional control through the Programa del Niño Sano [Healthy Child Program] of the Manabí Association and the Cabrini Centre. To support this action, information sessions and recipes for improving the nutrition of schoolchildren are organized with parents, who are given advice on how to improve their children’s nutrition.