Time with Common Hope

Our team spent the last two days with Common Hope, who is also hosting us on their campus in Antigua.  We started with a tour and learned more about their work.  Common Hope started in the 1980’s. Their mission is based on lifting people out of poverty through education, health care and housing.  They have a learning center, health clinic and dental clinic on campus and provide school supplies to all children affiliated with them.  They serve 3300 students in 3 locations, but also serve the families of the students, thus reaching out to 11,000 people.  The affiliated child must stay in school for the family to remain a part of the program.  Because health care is expensive and an illness in the family impacts a child’s ability to attend school rather than work, they provide basic health care.  Housing also affects a family’s ability to send their children to school so they provide homes for people who meet their criteria and put in sweat equity hours.  Families may also receive a stove via sweat equity.  Many people in villages in Guatemala cook over an open fire inside their home, causing air pollution and illness. A stove and kitchen is important.  School in Guatemala runs from mid-January through October.  Common Hope provides school supplies to all of the 3300 children affiliated with them.  School supplies will be handed out later this week and they still needed 500+ backpacks full of supplies to be filled.  Our team met that goal!  It was very fulfilling to feel like we accomplished something necessary and important. 

The other half of our day, we accompanied social workers on home visits to affiliated kids and their families. While at first we felt we may be intruding, we soon found that we are a help to them.  They cannot go into houses alone and our presence provided security and allowed them to not double up on social workers thus allowing them to attend to more families.  The family visits were an enlightening look inside the locked and closed doors in Antigua and its surrounding villages.  We saw clean homes, not so clean homes, but all were about the size of a room or two in our own homes and precariously built, sometimes with cinder blocks and sometimes with just aluminum sheets covered with plastic sheets to decorate them. Some homes were immaculate and some were filled with trash and the smell of rotting food and urine. Amazingly, often times 6-8 people lived in a one or two room home with one twin bed. 

We thought we had seen poverty.  Then today, we traveled to San Rafael.  San Rafael is a village of the  indigenous Kaqchikel, one subset of the Mayan people.   The main street is a dusty road filled with locked doors, people and dogs. We were let into a locked door with many women and children in bright colored, traditional clothing lined up. This is the clinic in San Rafeal, run by Common Hope.  It is bright, cheery and clean.  We then walked up a hill, straight up the mountain in loose gravel to get our work assignment. When we got there, we were told we’d need to walk down a different hill and carry up the rocks, concrete and dirt needed to make the cement floor. They’d been left there by the supplier.  We spent two hours carrying 25-50 lb bags up the slippery mountain side on our shoulders.  The young children of the home and their friends raced up the mountain in plastic sandals with supplies on top of their heads while we huffed and puffed our way up and down and back up again many times. We slipped and fell and walked around the trash and sewage, but we got all of the supplies to the home.  By the time we left, a complete concrete floor was built and the family will soon have a kitchen with a stove rather than an open fire in kitchen that looked as if it could blow over in the next storm.  This felt like a great success and the family was appreciative.

Next door to this home, we also built a roof in conjunction with another non-profit (NGO).  The children of the village all showed up to watch us and interact with us all day as they had little else to do and we were a novelty to them.  One team member created a game for them throwing extra pieces of wood into a bucket. Another who is fluent in Spanish spent time conversing with the young girls, who were like young girls everywhere; smiling, giggling and carefree just like any child deserves to feel.

The day was hard, but the people were beautiful and gracious. They work hard in difficult conditions but were happy and welcoming. The children especially were curious and friendly and it was difficult to leave them.   We left sore, tired, dirty and dusty.  We came back to Common Hope and raced for the showers and to throw all of our clothing in the laundry.  However, we realized that while we could quickly wash away the dust and dirt, the people of this community live with it daily.  We left with a greater appreciation for these people and the circumstances they live in.

By Ann Glaves
HR Director at St. Francis Regional Medical Center