Sharing

At The BPA we engage in good, soulful, service work nearly every day at our center in Santiago Atitlan. Recently, we felt inspired to "share the service wealth" with another grass-roots library in Santa Catarina Palopo. We visited Biblioteca Ru K'ux Na'oj, "el corazon de conocimiento," to help them design and paint a mural for their library. Our resident artist (and volunteer) Bonnie, aided in the creation of a captivating visual which represented our journeys with reading. Our team of librarians accompanied her to help with the project. Local students from Santa Catarina also collaborated with painting the mural.

Nurse Janie

Nurse Janie and her daughter Sophia visited La Puerta Abierta last week to participate in a week of service oriented work in Santiago Atitlan. In addition to being a trained nurse and mother of three, Janie is also on the advisory board of Starfish One by One, www.starfishonebyone.org, which supports Guatemalan teens with academic and leadership training. Janie was busy teaching nutrition in a fun and dynamic way for our BPA students and her daughter, a talented musician, enchanted our students young and old, with her singing. We are so grateful for our network of supporters around the world who collaborate with our projects in a variety of ways. Thank you Janie and Sophia!

Mildred

18 year old Mildred is our newest and youngest teacher at La Puerta Abierta. Throughout the school week, Mildred visits 3 rural schools with our traveling library program bringing story hour and book kits to hundreds of Santiago children. We are so lucky to have Mildred aboard at La Puerta Abierta. She is adored by teachers and and students alike for her enthusiasm, compassion, and totally sweet smile.

Behind the Scenes

Throughout the school week, BPA librarian Mildred visits 3 rural schools and hundreds of children bringing books, story hour, and creative teaching techniques to the class room. She is our Traveling Library Coordinator, our library on feet. We are so grateful for her efforts to share the gift of reading with the children of Santiago.

Here are a few pictures of her afternoon at rural school Panul.

Paul's Firefighters Visit La BPA

We received a wonderful training from Paul's firefighter team at La Puerta Abierta last week. The team lead us in a training of first aid and CPR. All our staff and many parents participated.

We send out a warm muchas gracias to Paul and his team!

Talking "Trash"

The Saturday morning reading group received a special visit from Environmentalist-Artist-Poet and long time resident of Santiago Atitlan, Violeta Luz Foregger. Violeta has been working on the creation of a children's story, Berta Basura, about a local girl who takes a journey to discover the impacts of trash on her community. Violeta visited our center yesterday to share the tale Berta Basura with our youth who will be participating in illustrating the story.

Miss Bonnie complemented that activity with an exploration of English words in nature.

We are so grateful for the help of our volunteers at La Puerta Abierta.

Art Classes with Angelika and Fotokids

Santiago's beloved artist, Angelika Bauer has been collaborating with La Puerta Abierta for over a year now bringing art technique classes to the youth of our community. This year, she has chosen to work with Fotokids (www.fotokids.org), a group of budding photographers from our town. This past week, students explored contrast and graduation using oil pastels. They delighted in smearing together rich colors and experimenting with new artistic techniques.