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

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Farewell to three key GVI Phoenix players

In the past month, we have said sad farewells to three long-term key players in the recent growth of GVI Phoenix across Latin America; Carla, having volunteered in 2005, has spent the past couple of years running the projects in Peru, with a stint in Guatemala.

She has been an integral part in setting up our new projects in the Colca Canyon region, as well as bringing forward the existing projects around Arequipa, to the point where our numbers have now almost doubled in each school.

She has left her legacy in Canacota and Ampi and I am glad to say that she will never be too far away for a bit of Cecilia action, as she will be working in Colombia in the future.

Neil, who volunteered with us in Guatemala building stoves, has spent the past year implementing our English Teaching program in Guatemala to children in Secondary school.

He also spent time in Honduras, introducing the program there and his syllabus, having been geared to take into account the children's backgrounds and previous education, is now being used across all Phoenix projects.

He and Irene have also been a huge help in the project management team in Guatemala. With the emphasis being put on English in Secondary Education, the results over the past year have shown an astounding improvement of the children.

Finally, we say goodbye to the wandering stover, Rufus! Rufus first volunteered with us in 2005 in Guatemala and came back to take over the stoving program in Guatemala, having never built one before, he leaves having had a hand in around 200 stoves.

He has also been the pioneer of our stoving projects in Honduras, Nicaragua, Ecuador and Perú, training up countless local masons in the skills of stove-building and building stoves in a wide variety of environments - don't ask him about floors!

He has also been a hugely important part of the management team in Guatemala for the past couple of years, with teaching and stoving.

Thanks to all of you, it has been a pleasure working with you all, and all the volunteers that you have looked after and helped along the way will wish you all the best I am sure. Cheers!