Guatemala Literacy Project
by Lorine Parks
GLP – what is it, and why?
Operated by Rotarians, Guatemala Literacy Project (GLP) is a partnership between Rotary International clubs and the non-profit organization Cooperative for Education (CoEd). The project is working with the goal of ensuring that no child in Guatemala grows up without the gift of both traditional and technological literacy.
This initiative provides badly-needed textbooks, computer labs, scholarships, literacy and training programs to underprivileged children in Guatemala. It is supported worldwide by 449 of our Rotary clubs in 7 countries.
Why Guatemala? Because that country has the highest illiteracy rate of all the countries in Central America. 90% live below the poverty level, and of that number, 50% are illiterate.
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Seventeen years after it was founded, GLP can point to astonishingly good results. In 2014, in 230 impoverished rural communities, there are over 150,000 students using textbooks at 171 schools. GLP is a sustainable plan: Rotary provides the textbooks and then the student pays $5, $1 each year for five years, the useful life of a book.
The GLP has also founded 41 self-funding computer centers and 51 primary reading programs. There are 192 students pursuing further learning, on Scholarships which GLP also offers.
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The components of the program are Tools, which means textbooks, and Training and Scholarships. Teachers are trained to use textbooks, which they never had before. Scholarships take the young people through more schooling and then helps to get them jobs.
No money is given for any other purpose: not for building schools, not for clothing.
What happens? It changes kids’ lives. Gina Regan, who has worked as a teacher-trainer on the project said she has seen how it turns their lives around.
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In rural districts, children are valuable in providing the family’s living. So it takes some convincing to get the fathers to let the girls go to school instead of doing drudge work at home. With training in literacy, a girl can get a job in a store or bank and start out earning four times what her father makes on the farm. Families have come to see how literacy will help the family situation.
There will be two study trips to Guatemala in February of 2016: from Feb 5-14, and 23-28. You can go and see the power of Rotary, and how lives are changed. Rich Strayer went last year, and was so impressed that he brought back the idea for our club to make this an International Project.