What's Happening in Altaverapaz

In January, the Work and Learn Team from Bethesda Mennonite Church spent time working with both Bezaleel and Saraxoch Schools in Altaverapaz. Additionally, the group from RJC spent time sharing with the students at Bezaleel in February. Below are two stories that explain more about the work that is happening in this region, and more specifically at Saraxoch Mennonite School.
Submitted by Antony and Irma Sanchez Solano

Saraxoch Menonite School Classrooms as Pedogogical Laboratories

Every Saturday 73 students from different villages from around San Pedro Carcha meet together in the Saraxoch Mennonite Educational Center to receive educational courses. The classes are part of an ongoing initiative sponsored by MCC’s Global Family program and facilitated by Fundameno, the social arm of an association of Kekchi Mennonite Churches.

The majority of students are young non-professional workers who desire to transform themselves and their communities. Through education they believe they can become more capable citizens and ultimately agents of transformation. The Saraxoch Menonite School provides the students with an opportunity to continue their middle school level studies on the weekends while maintaining their normal work schedule during the week.

Though an opportunity, in one way or another, for all the students, participating in the program is a considerable commitment. Besides the 2 hour-long bus rides, their unaccommodating schedules and $1 fares that slowly add up, one of the major challenges for those attending classes is that of being workers and students at the same time. Most students are either day-workers on farms or street vendors for small merchants, and unfortunately their education is not given priority by their supervisors. Thus obtaining permission can sometimes be an obstacle. Similarly, due to the limitations of time, classes are condensed into one Saturday session beginning at 8am and finishing at 4:30pm. This makes for a long and intense day of interaction that is ideally spread out across five days.

Taking into account the challenge of maintaining the motivation of students and the quality of education they receive, the school has adopted the methodology of converting its classrooms into “pedagogical laboratories for learning”. The focus is on changing assumptions about how students, teachers and classrooms relate to one another—instead of professors looking to students for the development of their classrooms, students look to professors and classrooms for the development of the respective subjects. In other words, students come before the classrooms and professors, and not the contrary.

For this reason the classrooms have been redesigned to fit the specific subjects offered, such as mathematics, social studies, sciences, etc. In this way each classroom is equipped with materials relevant to the respective subject. For example, in the room designated for the science, students will find the necessary materials and environment for the study of science. The same goes for the rest of the subjects that make up the curriculum. In addition, the students are invited to make connections between their work and their studies.

For the director of the school, Professor Victor Cifuentes, the idea is founded in interactive education where which students are given more responsibility. This consists of students taking on tasks such as research and teaching their peers, while teachers are encouraged to act as facilitators and not the traditional “sources of knowledge”. As the school social studies teacher Carlos XXXX said, “the responsibility to learn is given to the students.”

Students have been pleased with this new type of methodology. Pedro for example, an 8th grade student who works on a goat breeding farm, has had the opportunity to share his work experience as part of his natural science and biology classes. As part of the classes’ studies of mammals and their relationship to human beings, multiple times Pedro has been called on to share his extensive knowledge.

Luis and Alberto are two students that work in a bakery and their dream is to one day own their own bakery store as partners. Similar to Pedro, they have been called on to share their experiences to illustrate lessons in mathematics and social studies, especially in how to development a “life-plan”.

As mentioned, the response from students to this new learning methodology has been very positive. In general, students have voiced their appreciation of being empowered to learn.

Currently this pedagogical methodology is in its experimentation stage. Nevertheless, the impact and improvement of education offered at the Saraxoch School is slowly being recognized for its innovation amongst the indigenous communities of Guatemala.

Q’eqchi’ Pastors on the Path of Education Towards Development

Literacy is a big need for most of the indigenous communities in Guatemala. It is estimated, that more than 48% of adult men and 67% of adult women in indigenous communities are illiterate.

There are more than 110 different Q’eqchi’ Mennonite churches, totaling more than 100 thousand members in Alta Verapaz Region, most of them located in remote places and which share a common characteristic: Lack of education and literacy.

Global family has continuously supported Fundameno (the social agency of Q’eqchi’ Mennonite Churches) in their initiative for adult education in remote villages of Alta Verapaz during the last 8 years.

The literacy program is composed of 7 groups located in different villages of San Pedro Carcha municipality. More than 123 people are enrolled in the program this year.

One of these groups gathers in the head offices of Fundameno every Saturday. This group is composed of pastors and leaders from different Q’eqchi’ Mennonite churches, totaling 19 people in all, who come every Saturday in the morning in order to receive classes on reading, writing and basic arithmetic operations.

“Jesus invites us to be the light of the world; our commitment in following Jesus is to bring this light to the people who are members and believers in our communities”. But, “how we can bring the light if we are in darkness? We are not able to bring light if we are not trained and educated”, says Pastor Pedro Pop from the Mennonite church from Raxulha.

In words of brother Roberto Caal, one of the difficulties that local churches are facing, has to do with the low presence of the youth in the worship services. The youth from our communities are being impacted by social violence, drugs and alcoholism, some of them are now part of the juvenile gangs. “Most of the time we are unable to give accompany them or to teach the values of the gospel clearly, because we do not know how to write and read. We need to approach better skills to talk and counseling the youth. Youth have better access to education and are more knowledgeable than us and sometimes we feel embarrassed because we are unable to read and write” said Caal.

“Participating in this program is like opening our eyes to a new reality, to have access to better our skills, to keep ourselves connected to our country, to be able to do our tasks as pastors in a better way. So in educating ourselves, we are able to educate our children better and be able to support families in our congregations that are in need”, said Catarina Mes, a leader from Siquixchi.

Indigenous communities in Guatemala are suffering discrimination, not just because they are indigenous, but also because they speak another language besides the official one, which is Spanish. Alphabetization program open opportunities to people to communicate better in both languages, the mother language that in this case is Q’eqchi’ and in Spanish.

Being part of this educational program we have been able to understand the importance of education in the process of development of our communities, now we are inviting families in the congregation to educate themselves and to allow their children to be educated, so that all of us will be able to accomplish the mission of the church.

Carlos Coc, coordinator of the program and general secretary of the boar of directors of the Q’eqchi’ Mennonite church speaks out about the vision of the church in supporting their pastors and making elementary education for adults in all of the communities where the church is present, accessible. We would like for all of pastors and leaders be able to read and write and in this way make it possible for all of them to participate in different programs that the church has for pastoral training. It has taken us three years in order to start a literacy program with pastors Coc said.

Until now, education has not been a priority for most of the indigenous communities, but things are changing. This literacy program was started in six different communities this year. We are hearing how education is changing the lives of families in the communities, like the community of Santa Cecilia, Chacalte, where one student was hired as accountant of a coffee farm and another is working as a literacy promoter of a new group in her own community.

We feel that through this program we are contributing to the development of our churches and communities, as well as Guatemala as a whole, said another pastor.