Meet Rachel, our Newest Volunteer at La Puerta Abierta

Rachel was born and raised in Raleigh, North Carolina. She is currently studying Interpersonal Communication at North Carolina State University. She plans on heading to Portland, Organ after graduation to pursue her Masters in Social Work.

Rachel loves working for her college radio station, listening to music, riding on trains, and reading good books.

She decided to visit Guatemala for a much needed adventure. She has enjoyed the people she has met in Santiago and feels that they have already taught her to view the world differently.

La Puerta Abierta welcomes Rachel to their team. Stay tuned...Rachel will be sharing her experiences as a volunteer on our blog.

Celebrating our Teachers!

Today is Dia de los Maestros (Day of the Teachers) in Guatemala. We are so grateful for our wonderful staff of three teachers at La Puerta Abierta. Today we celebrate and honor Wendy, Candelaria and Chonita!

Meet Jose!

Name: Jose

Age: 4 years old

Attends: Mommy and Me/Early Stimulation Class at La Puerta Abierta

Says Jose, " My mom and I participate in the Early Stimulation program every week. I like visiting with my friends at the library. Miss Concepción is my teacher and she shares a story with us every Wednesday."

Favorite book: Oso Pardo, Oso Pardo, Que Ve Alli ? Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do You See?

The teachers at La Puerta Abierta comment, "Jose is full of energy and laughter. He likes to sing, dance, and especially likes story hour!"

Moving Right Along...A New Home for La Puerta Abierta

In 2007, La Puerta Abierta Library began as a small children's reading room which occupied a tiny space in the second floor of a local community project. As our programs began to expand, and our one room library grew crowded with children and parents, we quickly learned that we were going to need a larger space which would allow us to cultivate our programs.

Luckily in 2008, we received funding to transport our project to a local house which we rented and converted into a community learning center. We painted the walls with bright colors, filled our book shelves with games and toys, and opened our doors to a variety of new classes. With each passing month, new students would enroll in our reading clubs, our early stimulation classes, and our creativity programs.

At the end of last year, we recognized that our biggest problem once again was the size of our building due to the amount of children who were soliciting classes and home-work help. As far as problems go, I suppose having too many children interested in reading and learning is a good one to have!

Three months ago, we celebrated breaking ground of the future Puerta Abierta! We continue to "move right along" with the construction of our new learning center which will host two large rooms for reading, activities, and creative learning as well as an outdoor area for children to explore.

Like most things in Guatemala, construction is slow and unpredictable. With a little luck , we'll be inaugurating our new center in August, 2010.

Diaries from a Volunteer at La Puerta Abierta

By: Brittany

BPA visiting volunteer

My experience volunteering with librarians and the children at La Puerta Abierta was wonderful. I traveled to Santiago Atitlan to volunteer at the local hospital as a nurse with my newly earned RN. I luckily stumbled upon La Puerta Abierta one day as I was walking through Santiago exploring. The energy at the library was alive and vibrant, and I quickly set up a time to volunteer. I ended up volunteering about four days a week with the library, and found my niche to be in a local community in Panabaj where the library hosts an out-reach project.

The children in Panabaj were warm, energetic, and easy to get to know. I quickly found myself looking forward to our meetings and having difficulty saying goodbye after each session.
I remember my last day volunteering in Panabaj… After reading our book and completing our activity, we played a massive game of hide and seek throughout the community. Our game became more and more intense and we began sprawling further and further into the surrounding coffee trees. I have so many memories with the children, and ones more educational than this one, but their smiles, enthusiasm and sheer joy throughout our last game of hide and seek are still very clear in my mind.

Another special memory I have also took place in the Panabaj community. This is a memory of pride and success. This was a day that I presented an activity that I created using the children’s book, “La Casa Adormecida.” One of the follow up activities was to attempt to recall all the characters that were presented sequentially throughout the book. It was a large task, but I wanted to see if anyone was brave enough to stand in front of the class and go for it. There were about eight characters, a bed, a grandmother, a boy, a dog, a cat, etc. Basic words, but the challenge was in standing before all their peers and public speaking. I was not surprised that no one volunteered at first. However, I asked my special friend, Ruth, if she would do me a favor and give it a try. She very reluctantly walked towards the front. I said, “Ruth, look at your classmates, not at the ground!” And she bravely looked up, and slowly recited every single character in perfect order to her classmates. I was so thrilled, and so was she! Her smile and sense of achievement were so memorable. I will always remember Ruth and all of her impressive talents.

Santiago Atitlan bounces back after Tropical Storm Agatha

Agatha, the first tropical storm of Central America's hurricane season, hovered over Guatemala last weekend bringing heavy rains and flooding to our community.

The staff at La Puerta Abierta thanks our friends and family for their thoughts concerning our community, our students, and our center. We are happy to report that we are all fine and have had 4 consecutive days of sunshine post storm.

This said, many families throughout the region lost their homes, belongings and crops to the heavy flooding which quickly swept through villages.

While school has been suspended for the week as a nation wide mandate, we are trying to maintain some level of routine at La Puerta Abierta. We have "opened our doors" for children who continue to attend our classes. Students have been dropping in to read books, gather with their friends, play games, or to simply escape some of the stresses and fears associated with the heavy rain falls.

As we begin to bounce back into the swing of things, I am reminded of how resilient the people of Guatemala are. Roads are quickly being rebuilt, homes and centers have been opened offering temporary shelter for displaced families, and community members are reaching out to one another.

If you would like to make a donation to support the reconstruction process, check out http://www.internationalhf.org/page.php?10