As Luis Bourdet and Yefiny Mena continue their visits to our affiliated sites in Guatemala, Yefiny writes about the Casa Central School, where an inventive program is offering students the chance ot help others in their own communities.
In the heart of Guatemala City
“Casa Central is located in Guatemala City. At the moment, we have 69 children at this affiliation site. Our coordinator is Sor Alicia G. Morataya who is also assisted by Lisbet A. Martinez. Our children here attend different schools that go from primary to high school grade. Besides helping the children, they perform other tasks and social work like providing food for homeless people of the community once a week. The Casa Central School is located in the heart of Guatemala City and serves children from low-income families on the periphery of the city, mostly without a stable housing environment, permanent income, and steady provision of educational, nutritional, and health services. The Children Incorporated monthly support helps in the provision of food, school supplies, shoes, and clothing to the participant children,” said Yefiny.
“This with the purpose of getting them ready to attend local public schools, with very few attending low-cost private schools in the area. Participant children on the Children Incorporated program attend school education all the way from K to 12th grades, which may prepare them for skill training or for university. However, many are prepared here to initiate the arduous labor life, at least with a high school diploma, which was never available to their parents.”
The Center has some support from a local university by providing students to complete their required practicum, mostly in the Social Services area of their careers. The Center is run by the Congregation of Sisters of Mercy, a Catholic Order dedicated to education, health and community services mission. The Sisters also run a soup kitchen for indigents here, as well as a home for the elderly.
The Center is a well-care section of the compound, with a large enclosed area for meetings and food distribution and small offices to do social service support and follow-ups. They also have a large kitchen where they prepare food for the indigents. The home for the elderly is in a different location to the center. Children at Casa Central meet here once a month to receive their subsidies that consist of nutritious food, hygiene items, clothes, shoes and school supplies at the beginning of each school year. According to the coordinator, the help provided to all these children has been tremendous since many of their parent’s economy has been affected after Covid-19, making them to struggle to provide for their basic children’s need. One of the biggest satisfaction for us is knowing that helping these children will positively change their life by helping them to go to school and achieve their goals, giving them the possibilities to have a better future for themselves and their families.
This is the case of Gerson; a now 18 year old teenager who has been in our program since he was 8 years old and who is now finishing high school, as well as a technical career as an accounting clerk. He expressed to us how grateful he is to have the opportunity to be part of Children Incorporate and to be able to study and pursue a technical career. A career that due to the economic situation of his family, they could not have afforded.
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