A good place for donations
In this holiday season, many people are in a giving spirit, but are not sure where to send their cash since so many charities are mostly either a money-sink or a scam. However, we just spent a week with the folks at Pop-Wuj and we can attest that this is a program worthy of your hard earned dollars/euros if you should be so inclined.
Pop-Wuj has a variety of projects that make a real, positive and lasting effect on the impoverished Maya communities that are the majority of the Guatemalan population. The organization's overhead is paid entirely out of profits from the Spanish language school that they run, so any donations will go entirely to people in need. The organization has no religious or ideological associations and provides help without any obligations, material, spiritual or otherwise. Further, their projects focus on long-term goals that will help improve the community in the future, not just short-term feel-good projects. Programs include:
- Scholarships to children who have the ability to do well in school but will not be able to continue without help. One of Guatemala's greatest problems is that children need to work in order support themselves. Even in families where the parents earn enough to feed their children, things such as books and clothes for school are out of reach. As a result, most of the population has around a third-grade education. The lack of an educated workforce is one of the worst things for this country's economy. This program provides children in need with some basic school supplies (shoes, pencils, etc) and 12 dollars a month for food. You can sponsor a child for around 160 dollars a year.
- Day care centers for children of poor families. This program provides a place for women with children to leave them while they work to earn money for the family. The centers provide the children with proper nutrition, educationally stimulating environments and a safe environment. Otherwise these children would be in the streets. Also, the meals are key: Guatemala has a terrible problem with child nutrition.
- Community projects, such as clinic building or stove construction. These directly improve quality of life for hundreds of families. For example, many Maya families cook over open fires in their homes, which exposes them (especially the women and children) to smoke toxins equivalent to a couple packs of cigarettes a day. It also consumes a lot of wood, which costs the families a lot of labor/money and contributes to Guatemala's deforestation problem. This project builds wood fired stoves that improve the air quality in the homes and reduces wood consumption by about half. As a bonus, it also teaches people how to build their own stoves.
- Medical clinics that provide free health care and health education to anybody who shows up at the door. These clinics provide the most basic of care that has significant long term impact on people. The leading causes of child death and disablement in Guatemala are from easily prevented and treated diseases. Almost 10% of the population is disabled beyond the capacity to work, and this represents a significant drag on the population. This program is working to provide families and children with the resources necessary to survive.
If you would like to make a donation, contact the school on the contact page on their website. Happy holidays!
