GVI Phoenix Projects - our mission statement and ten miscellaneous facts for 2009

GVI Phoenix believes that education, both primary and secondary, as well as daily food, is a basic human right. As the World finally wakes up to shortcomings in education and uneven distribution of food supplies, over the past few years, GVI Phoenix has been attempting to combat these imbalances through GVI Phoenix volunteers and the GVI Charitable Trust.

In the communities in which we operate in Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Ecuador and Perú, these basic rights are, quite simply, often not attainable as rising food prices across the board further pressure families, already past break-even, to make the decision of not what to eat and do for their children, though when to eat and how to educate their children.

Both these “rights” walk hand in hand: a hungry child cannot learn effectively. During 2009, GVI Phoenix volunteers and the GVI Charitable Trust will provide the following:

1) First time education or educational reinforcement to over 1,700 children.



2) Scholarships for primary education where education is not free (Guatemala) have exceeded 500 children who otherwise would not have been able to attend school due to financial constraints.


3) Almost 200 children and adults, aged between 12 and 23, will receive secondary education.


4) Over 130 local people will be employed directly or indirectly by GVI Phoenix projects.


5) Daily fixed journeys to and from our communities will almost touch 100,000km, throughout the year.


6) 10,000 trees will be planted and over 100 energy saving wood-burning stoves will be constructed.









7) Over 45,000 hours of teaching and 20,000 hours of lesson planning by volunteers!
8) Over 450,000 pieces of fruit will be distributed, as well as 350,000 whole or subsidized meals provided to the children.













9) Almost 500 “elderly” members of the community will be fed under the Plan Ancianos and over 100 families will benefit from the Plan Semilla (Seeds), Plan Fertilizante, Plan Moo (cows) and the Plan Pollo (live chickens).


10) On top of this, and previous volunteers can vouch for this, thousands of pens (lapiceros), pencils (lapices), pencil sharpeners (sacapuntas), colouring pencils (lapices de colores), work-books (cuadernos) and erasers (borradores) will be provided.


However, it is not all just one big hand-out. There must be a second party in all of this, and this is the families of the children themselves. They must sacrifice the extra pair of hands in the fields to allow the children to spend so much time in education.


The financial sacrifice of this for the family is large in comparison in the short-term, though in the long-term, it is an investment that GVI Phoenix, the GVI Charitable Trust and the families themselves believe will be worth it.

GVI Phoenix Projects - our mission statement and ten miscellaneous facts for 2009