Pochuta School Beautification – Team 1 by Allison Johnson

Inocento, an organic farmer, shares his
dream with the group as Maria looks on and translates.

We did amazing things today. AMAZING. 

We drove two hours to a remote rural mountain village and helped entrepreneur, Maria Pacheco of Wakami, make improvements to a pilot school. Maria’s company provides education and training support for rural mothers to become business leaders and change agents – more on that in a bit.

When we arrived in Pochuta all the school kids, teachers and other workers gathered in a room of the school where we introduced ourselves and there were many warm words of welcome and gratitude. Then Maria gave a short presentation about Wakami's mission, vision, and business model, and we did an activity where we each drew our dream and shared it with the group. Many were similar, hoping for homes and food and education, but one was particularly stunning – the PTA president explained that her dream was for sex education to be available. She explained that Guatemalans know they will have more resources for food and education if they had fewer children, but health clinics have no education resources for teaching family planning. Another barrier is that in the highly conservative Guatemalan culture, speaking about this is taboo.

Maria with the PTA president, speaking about Wakami’s partnership with the school.

Maria’s organization focuses on building prosperity in rural Guatemalan communities, and has a strong focus on nutrition and education as the keys to ending the cycle of poverty. Many mothers here think coffee and tortillas are ok to feed babies – with coffee often being the first liquid given to infants after breastmilk, starting at around 8 months of age. Some mothers have so little resources for food they feed their babies sugar water. As a result, babies are small and as their bodies don’t grow, their brains aren’t reaching their full potential either. By the age of 2, that gap can’t be made up for even with good nutrition later in life. Many of us were shocked when the school kids told us their ages, 12 and 13 year-olds looked to us like 8 or 9 year-olds. The malnutrition rate in Guatemala is about 50%, and it’s increasingly common to see children who are undernourished but overweight, because pop and chips are cheap and readily available. In fact, Maria explained that when the government wants to run a vaccination initiative they use Pepsi and Frito Lays’ logistics because these trucks go everywhere in Guatemala. 

Women here are commonly taken out of school by fifth grade (or earlier) in order to work to support their families and become mothers by 15 or 16. The cycle continues – the culture of machismo firmly underpins all of this. However, if women have income (through learning a skill or service – which is how Wakami first becomes involved in a community) they can send their daughters to school and it breaks the cycle of poverty.

The next step is for Wakami to partner with schools. If women have money to send children to school, but the education is poor, the improvement cycle fails. So we’re here in Pochuta today to complete several improvement projects that Team 2 started earlier in the week.

The 12 of us broke into smaller teams and worked on various projects around the school and its grounds. We finished the painting that the team from earlier in the week started, built a stove and assembled water filters for the kitchen, painted a mural, planted an organic garden and beautified the yard with other small decorative gardens and painted rocks. This was absolutely the most fun I had, and judging by the smiles and energy, I think others on my team did too.

Michelle, Chris, and Brett painting the school.

Cesar and Jose painting the school.

 The kids and I worked on the mural.

The cook begins serving lunch in the classroom.

Around midday we took a break for lunch, which was cooked on the new stove. We were served generous portions of rice, potatoes, carrots, guisquil (a squash-like vegetable), green beans, braised chicken and tortillas. It was an incredible meal, shared with everyone who was there – the Allina Health team, Maria and her local business leaders, our bus driver, our police escort, and of course all the kids. Our new little friends eagerly cleared any remaining food from our plates, the most advantageous ones wrapping leftover chicken in paper napkins to save for later.  They were so excited to have plastic knives and immediately started practicing using them to cut – afterward they wiped them off with their fingers and placed them in their pockets for whatever industrious future uses they could devise.

The school leaders present Maria with an honorary diploma.

The kids pose in front of the completed mural.

After lunch we finished working on our projects, had a short closing ceremony and took a lot of pictures!  Maria was presented with a symbolic diploma from the teachers of the school.  What an amazing day, working side by side with this incredible community and meeting Maria. She is an inspiration and is doing so much good in this part of the world.

This says it all – friendship and generosity.