Our Programs
Our programs support our mission of partnering with the Maya people of northwest Guatemala to improve conditions in the region. While our central focus is education, high-priority areas also include support for sustainable organic family gardens, and initiatives that aid the poorest families in the Adopt-a-Village area.
The Maya Jaguar Private Technical Institute
This bustling educational community stands in a pristine rainforest located in a remote area of northwestern Guatemala. Its residential campus comprises the Maya Jaguar Middle and High Schools, staff and student housing, a nutrition center, organic gardens, a small poultry farm, and 200 acres of protected habitat for hundreds of animals, birds, insects, and reptiles.
High Educational Standards
The organization’s Maya Jaguar Private Technical Institute provides innovative and rigorous education for Indigenous Maya students through contemporary hands-on training programs.
Comprehensive middle and high school curriculum with extensive support. Graduates become nurses, teachers, school directors, computer technicians, and business managers.
Modern teacher development programs focus on critical thinking, problem-solving, decision-making, and expanding technological skills.
Sustainable Management
Solar equipment powers the buildings. A rainwater collection system supplies water for campus needs. Students help to manage the campus’s rain-fed organic gardens and through community outreach programs students share their knowledge of these gardening practices with children in outlying villages.
Modern equipment for best learning opportunities
Fully-equipped computer and science labs (otherwise non-existent in the region), give students valuable opportunities to gain a superior education. The intensive two-year computer course offers training in maintaining and repairing computers as well as mastering advanced computer skills. A satellite system ensures access to the Internet for educational research. The adjoining rain forest habitat offers a rare opportunity for interactive biology studies.
Leadership training with multiple degrees
Students prepare for leadership roles by learning to apply sustainable practices that can help to transform the conditions of poverty in their communities. They earn diplomas in three disciplines: academics, sustainable agriculture, and computer science. Through the quality education provided, graduates are prepared to pursue professional training, a university degree, or meaningful employment.
How you can help
Endow a full or partial annual scholarship.
Fund a computer or a tablet for a student.
To make a donation in support of our sustainable education program, click here.
Bilingual Early Literacy Program
Less than 30 percent of Maya children living in remote villages in northwestern Guatemala complete primary school. Most Indigenous girls attend only two or three years of schooling. Rural primary schools have few educational resources; most have no books.
Because Indigenous children in this region of Guatemala speak only their local Mayan language, the Bilingual Early Literacy Program focuses on teaching the child to read and write in Spanish, the official curriculum language in Guatemalan schools. It prepares Indigenous children for academic success from first grade and beyond.
Bilingual Early Literacy Goals:
Create opportunities for children to be successful in primary school and beyond by introducing the Spanish language to them.
Promote pride in the children’s language by assisting them in retaining their native tongue and culture.
Teach reading readiness skills.
Provide age-appropriate numeracy education.
Facilitate nutritional strategies with village parents that include “mini chicken-laying” programs and growing vegetable gardens with their children.
Health and Nutrition play a vital part in learning
Sick kids can’t learn. Nor can hungry kids. That’s why health and good nutrition have been incorporated into our teaching.
Four of our village programs now offer children the opportunity to learn organic vegetable gardening and care for their own small flock of laying chickens. In this region of chronic child malnutrition, these preschoolers benefit from the fresh produce and eggs that add vital protein and vitamins to their meals.
How you can help
School supplies, books and educational games in literacy and numeracy are needed. Funding for seeds, organic fertilizer, fencing, and egg-laying chickens are needed to support the nutritional sector of our training. Your gift, large or small, has the power to transform a Maya child’s life through the magic of reading, numeracy, and life learning skills.
To make a donation in support of Adopt-a-Village in Guatemala's Bilingual Early Literacy Program, click here.
Educational Farm & Nutrition Program
Providing healthy nutrition education of students, preschoolers, and their families; cultivation instruction for organic vegetable gardening.
To make a donation in support of our education program, click here.