GVI Phoenix Project

Facts and figures

On an annual basis we aim to provide:
First time education or educational reinforcement to almost 2000 children in primary school
Secondary education to over 200 children and adults
Employment to over 75 local people; more-so indirectly
100 energy saving wood-burning stoves and 15,000 trees planted
Around 100,000 teaching hours
Over 500,000 pieces of fruit
1,000’s of pens, pencils, pencil sharpeners, colouring pencils, work-books and erasers
Over 300,000 whole or subsidized meals
Daily education in 16 communities across Latin America
Direct benefits to over 500 families

Thursday, June 12, 2008

Plan Ancianos in Santa María, Guatemala

This past week, we started the Plan Ancianos, or Old People's Food Program in Santa María de Jesús. This has been running in Itzapa for some time and now we have added it to Santa María, thanks to the GVI Phoenix volunteers and the GVI Charitable Trust.

Plan Ancianos works as follows: each month, the elderly generation of our children in the schools, will receive food parcels containing the basic foodstuffs: oil, salt, sugar, mosh (oatmeal), pastas, rice, frijoles (beans) and soap, which supplements what little they have at present.

Due to economic constraints, the elderly population tend not to eat much as the limited food does not stretch that far. Maybe a couple of tortillas and a chilli on a daily basis.

Plan Ancianos hopes that with this addition for the elderly population's food, there will be more for the children to eat, as well as the "ancianitos", continuing our aim of feeding and educating the children.

It is only available for the families with children in the school with us, so another reason for the parents to send their children to school each day - the child doesn't attend school, the "ancianitos" will not receive the monthly food packets.

We must remember that education is still a fairly new concept so the more visible benefits, the better. Also, we must remember that handouts do not solve the problem either so there must be a bit of give and take on behalf of the families, which means the children must attend school, rather than working in the fields.

Earlier this year we pioneered the Plan Fertilizante, where we provided fertlizer for each family for their crops. The land our families have/rent is on the outskirts of the good land, and often yields very poor crops as the soil is of poor quality.

To benefit from Plan Fertilizante, the families had to provide certain items to go towards the Plan Ancianos, which inlcuded oil and pasta. This way, the families were contributing something to the Plan Ancianos.

Plan Ancianos brings our project to involve the whole community, not just the children, though is interlinked with our project aims, to keep children in school and to make sure there is improved food supplies for the family, especially the children.