Spotlight on Nutrition Month

Text and photos by Emily Rempel

Throughout the month of March we invited you to share in the work of our Nutrition Program, offering the chance to view this project from a multitude of perspectives. First, we introduced you to the program by talking briefly about what it is that we do, why we need to do it, and how you can help. Take a look at the full Facebook post here.

Then we shared the words of our partner organization, Foundation Todos Juntos, who works with Pop Wuj to help raise funds for our various social projects. A call went out to Todos Juntos' network, as well as those following Pop Wuj, asking for help to continue running this vital project. In 2016 the costs associated with running the Nutrition Program grew significantly due to increased need for medical treatment including specialist care, medications, and baby and toddler follow-up visits. The reality is that this upward projection is expected to continue through 2017, which has certainly been the case over the first few months of this year. Foundation Todos Juntos offers an easy, secure way to make a tax-deductible donation online or via check.

Young Participants at a Nutrition Program Meeting in La Victoria

We then shared the stories of 14-month-old Eliseo and Elias, twins boys who quickly stole the hearts of the entire Nutrition team at Pop Wuj. Eliseo and Elias, both born prematurely, have spent their lives fighting a myriad of health problems and are both suffering from acute malnutrition. Recently the health of Elias took a scary turn for the worse and he had to be admitted into the hospital. Eliseo's health worsened in turn, due to the stresses of being separated from his mother and brother during their hospital stay. With the help of Pop Wuj's Nutrition Program, and the diligence of their parents, the health of the twins appears to be improving. That said, it will still be a long, hard struggle to support the growth and development of Eliseo and Elias. Read about their story here.

On the blog, Environmental Projects Coordinator Mary Gramiak delved into the complex question of why malnutrition is so pervasive in Guatemala. In her post she discussed issues such as the high cost of nutrient-rich food, environmental impacts on agriculture, and systemic discrimination against indigenous populations.

A young Participant in La Victoria playing a game of peek-a-boo with his truck

We were thrilled to share the Nutrition Program success story of Sheily and her mother Doña Eva. With the support of Pop Wuj and the diligence of Doña Eva, Sheily went from being "especially small and fragile" to being happy, healthy, and able to engage in the world with the curiosity expected of an energetic 2-year-old. Read more about Sheily and Doña Eva in our Facebook post.

Following Mary's blog post about the root causes of malnutrition in Guatemala, I wrote a post about the short-term and long-term effects of malnutrition. When a child experiences malnutrition during their vital years of development they risk stunted growth, weakened immune systems, delays to emotional and cognitive development, and lowered IQs. Within a system that already disproportionately discriminates against indigenous populations, the effects of malnutrition become compounded and cyclical. Our Nutrition Program aims to break these cycles.

A young Participant takes in the sights of our Nutrition Program in La Victoria

Our "farewell" to Nutrition Month post highlighted the generosity of our donors who supported us throughout March. We are so grateful to you for working with us in our life-changing Nutrition Program. Together, we will be able to help break the interconnected cycles of poverty and malnutrition for many children and their families in the department of Quetzaltenango. That said, we still need to raise about $11,000, or 33% of our annual budget. Although Nutrition Month has come to an end, our work continues, as does our need for continued support. A donation to our Nutrition Program will allow us to continue serving approximately 110 children per month - children like Eliseo, Elias, and Sheily. Donate today!

Big Challenges and Bigger Successes - An Update on our Family Support Center

Text by Emily Rempel
Photos by Elizabeth Barnes

The start of 2017 presented us with a bit of an unexpected speed bump for the Family Support Center. In 2016 the Center had operated in the community center Ixcanul Noj in Llanos del Pinal, with snacks and meals being served in the home of Doña Delfina. However in January of this year we were told that Pop Wuj would be required to pay a large monthly amount to rent the space. This fee would have been unsustainable for Pop Wuj so unfortunately we were tasked with finding a new location in Llanos del Pinal.

Over the course of January and well into February Carmen and Family Support Center staff and participants did extensive leg-work to find us a suitable new location, one that would be within-budget but still have all of the requirements necessary to be an effective space. Finally, on February 20^th, we signed the papers for our new location. The following week included a huge moving day and many, many hours of dedicated work from the Family Support Center and Pop Wuj staff and volunteers to get the project up and running. On February 27^th we were finally able to re-open the doors to the Family Support Center. 

The minute the doors opened, the FSC kids came running through to explore their new home. Our new Center is located behind a store, just a short walk from the local school where many of the students spend their mornings. The space has a large cement courtyard (which is regularly used for energetic soccer games), two classrooms, and a kitchen/dining room. When Carmen asked the kids if they were happy with the new location, she was met by a resounding "¡Sí!" and lots of smiles.

Daniela, Yadira, and Andrea are all smiles in the new Center! 

Another exciting addition to the Family Support Center is our new chef, Kevin Jimenez. Kevin has been preparing healthy and delicious hot lunches and snacks for the kids. During our first meeting with the mothers of the Family Support Center several of them shared that their children had given Kevin rave reviews! Moving forward, Kevin and Carmen will be trying to buy as much produce for the Center as possible from the mothers themselves. Not only will this provide the kids with fresher vegetables, but it offers another way for the Center to support the families of Llanos del Pinal (and vice versa)!

Boys Cook Too!  Julio and Arturo help Kevin in the kitchen

Our older group of students, the mayores, are being taught by FSC director Shaaron. Not only is Shaaron teaching while acting as Director, but she is also working on her Masters degree. The younger group of school-age students, the medianos, are still being taught by Santos, who, like Shaaron, is also pursuing post-secondary education. Our youngest group of kids stay at the Center all day, as they are too young for school. They are cared for by Doña Silvia and Angelica. Angelica is also attending university, but still working with the kids whenever possible. We are so proud of our dedicated, passionate, and hard-working staff! 

Eagerly Awaiting Snack Time

Sharp Hopscotch Skills 

The Center has been up and running strong for just over a month now. On March 8th, to mark International Women's Day, Shaaron and Santos planned some fun activities for the kids. One of the most popular was a game with balloons, where partners had to hold a balloon between their heads and race from one end of the courtyard and back without dropping their it. The message shared with the kids at the end of the activities was that girls can do anything that boys can do! 

Racing Ahead!

Hirrany and Damaris, concentraing hard on keeping their balloon safe!

We also celebrated World Water Day on March 22nd. The kids learned about waste water, the importance of boiling water before consuming it, and how they can help to keep our waters clean and safe. 

"The Importance of Water" - A beautiful informational poster by one of our talented participants

Although 2017 started off slowly and (very) stressfully, we're so excited to be back on track, providing 25 kids from Llanos del Pinal with a safe space to grow, play, and learn. Thank you all for your continued support of our project! 

Student Coordinator Elizabeth taking a group selfie with Yosvin and Andrea

Group coloring session with Pop Wuj Spanish student Jamie

Celebrating Education at the Scholarship Assembly

Text by Elizabeth Barnes and photos by Lily Bodinson

The Pop Wuj Scholarship Program is our oldest and biggest project. Founders recruited the first scholarship recipients 25 years ago, a few weeks before Pop Wuj Spanish School opened!

But the Scholarship Program also maybe the least visible of our projects, as typically only interns or students in the Social Work Spanish Program volunteer at monthly meetings. Also, investment in education is a longer-term project. We wait longer to see results than in, say, the Safe Stove Project.

Once a year, we dedicate a day to spotlighting the Scholarship Program and celebrating student achievement. In 2016 we invited all 122 students and their families to the school for our Scholarship Assembly on November 30.

We try to accomplish a lot—checking everyone's health, writing letters, recognizing students, taking photos, and gathering updates.

Scholarship students wait in line outside the Pop Wuj Clinic.

First each student checked in at the clinic, where Medical Spanish Program student volunteers did a quick height/weight check. Anyone needing further medical attention also saw a doctor.

Medical Spanish Program students Lauren and Terry take a brief history with a family.

Upstairs, students started at the letter table to write notes to their padrinos y madrinas (sponsors).

Busy with letters!

 When all the students had passed through the clinic, everyone convened for a ceremony.

Roney Alvarado Gamarro, Director of the Medical Program at Pop Wuj, opens the ceremony by welcoming the students and their families. Family Support Center participant Yadira (bottom right) was not the most attentive.

The ceremony celebrated the hard work of all our Scholarship Program students. But we set aside time to recognize those who have now completed primary school (8 students), middle school (9), high school (9), or a post-secondary program (1—Dinora).

Dinora completed her program to be a nurse's assistant this December. We are so proud! You can read more about her accomplishments and Pop Wuj's other post-secondary students (including her brother Gustavo) in the last issue of Solidaridad, the Pop Wuj and Foundation Todos Juntos newsletter.

Ceremony over, we broke out tamales! (None of which lasted long enough to make it into a photo.)

All day the school was bursting at the seams with people. Amid the chaos, our photographer Lily and visiting volunteer Amy Scheuren rounded up students to take photos on the roof. (Amy is a former Pop Wuj Student Coordinator and current president of Foundation Todos Juntos. We were delighted to have her back for a week!)

Everyone who completed primary school! 

Finally, before leaving, at least one representative from each family checked in with Director of Social Projects Carmen de Alvarado to receive the year's last scholarship payment, discuss any problems, and share plans for 2017. Scholarship sponsors will get the latest news in an update from Amy soon.

Even though the Scholarship Assembly arguably makes for the most jam-packed, hectic day of the year, it's also a highlight for staff and volunteers. It's a chance to see all of our awesome students and their families and celebrate victories after their hard work!

Letters done? Yessica and Erick break out Pop Wuj's guitar. Erick graduated from high school this year!

Astrid and her son Emmanuel pose on the roof. His dad, Gustavo, is a university student. (Gustavo is also featured in Solidaridad!) Emmanuel is a Family Support Center participant and will start school in 2017.

¡Felices fiestas a todos! Happy holidays, everyone! Nos vemos en 2017.

Have you checked out the fall / winter issue of Solidaridad, with news from Asociación Pop Wuj and Foundation Todos Juntos? Read it online and subscribe to receive the next edition by email!

Cakes & Races: School Vacation at the FSC (Part III)

Text and birthday photos by Elizabeth Barnes

Olympics photos by Pop Wuj teacher Gerson Yax (unless otherwise noted)

Today we're wrapping up a series of blog posts showing off recent events at Family Support Center. The participants are all on school vacation, and we've celebrated with special activities.

On November 10, we threw 2016's final birthday party!

Family Support Center Director Shaaron Hurtado leads everyone in applause for one of our birthday girls, Jessica. She turned 5 this year. We celebrate groups of birthdays, so this party featured everyone born between September and December.

After completing primary school, students graduate out of the FSC. (They do continue receiving support through Pop Wuj's Scholarship Program, and we invite graduates to join us for certain events like baking pumpkin pie for the Halloween party, the Olympics, and other fun days.)

This year we have a sixth grader, Maria, who just turned 15. The Director of Social Projects Carmen de Alvarado decided to honor her and Luisa, another FSC participant and scholarship recipient who turned 15. Quinceñaras (girls who turn 15) traditionally have special celebrations on that birthday to mark their transition into womanhood. (We emphasized that there's no rush to stop being kids!)

Carmen opened with a brief speech of congratulations and invited Doña Delfina, Luisa's grandmother and the FSC cook, to share some advice with Maria and Luisa. Then the girls held a mini dance.

Luisa and Maria have their quinceñara dance. Although our celebration wasn't fancy, we hope that upholding these traditions helped Maria and Lusa know how much they are loved at the project.

The younger children waited patiently for the more "grown-up" portion of the party to wrap up. When Maria and Luisa's dance song ended, it was time for piñatas!

At 3 years old, Andrea was our youngest birthday kid at this party. She couldn't be coaxed into having the first shot at the piñata, but after watching some older peers take their turns she changed her mind and went for it!

Shaaron ties Luisa's bandanna. Older kids hit the piñata with their eyes covered!

Once the ground had been picked clean of every last piece of candy and peanut from our two piñatas, we brought out the cakes.

Carmen and Shaaron light the candles.

Returning Pop Wuj student Alison generously baked those two cakes from scratch, frosted and decorated them, and had them completely ready to go by Thursday morning. She not only saved us time spent baking them or money spent buying them, but also produced the year's most delicious birthday cakes!

Angel and Samuel dig into their cake.

Brenda, Ilcy, and Norma enjoy the party! 

We're proud of all the Family Support Center participants and how they've grown this year.

Next up: On November 17, we held the Olympics! We rent a hotel's well-tended, enclosed soccer field in Llanos del Pinal for our games. First, in two groups, the participants presented their gimnasio (synchronized fitness dance routines).

Ilcy and Norma can't stop grinning at each other. Because they are in sixth grade, sisters Maria and Norma were leaders of the two gimnasio teams.

Gimnasio triumphantly executed, we divided everyone into four teams—yellow, blue, green, and red. 

I can say with absolutely no bias that Equipo Rojo was the best.

Our first Olympic event was a sack race!

Samuel tears toward the finish line. The sack race was a relay, so on his return Damaris took off in her sack.

Next we lined up with jump ropes for an over/under, jumping/rolling relay race.

Julio vaults over Daniela's jump rope as Equipo Azul looks on.

Jessica runs back to the starting line to tag the next member of her team.

We took a water, oranges, and tamales break (mostly so that participating adults could catch their breath) and started blowing up balloons for the next event. The object of this game is to pop everyone else's balloon without having the balloon around your own ankle popped.

Lesly charges forth! She graduated out of the project last year but came back to represent Team Blue.

You can't catch Evelyn!

After that—guerra de globos! Balloon war!

Photographer Gerson couldn't get too close to the carnage for his own safety/dryness.

Once everyone was wet—¡fútbol!

Long-time friend of Pop Wuj Tom and Family Support Center graduate Angélica sportingly play for Equipo Verde.

Afterward, sweaty and breathless, everyone reconvened in the shade to hear the winners announced. Team captains went up to have their points tallied. Equipo Azul took first place!

Pop Wuj student Will and his teammates put on their medals.

Equipo Amarillo came in second place!

Team captain Maria calls her players forward to be honored as FSC teacher Lidia untangles medals.

Equipos Verde and Rojo got stickers that said, "You're Dynamite!" which are better than some silly medal anyway. I'ts not like Equipo Rojo even wanted to win. (As a certain Student Coordinator privately sulked, Shaaron spoke with the kids about the importance of good sportsmanship.)

Along with the FSC participants, Pop Wuj staff and volunteers have had so much fun at all these activities. We have the Christmas party next week before the project closes for 2016, and we plan to make the most of that time!

Bites & Frights: School Vacation at the FSC (Part II)

Text and photos by Elizabeth Barnes (unless otherwise noted)

Last week we started a blog series on the activities we've held in the last month or so at the Family Support Center. Today is the last regular day of the project for 2016. As the kids are enjoying a water balloon fight and afternoon movie in Llanos del Pinal, we're looking back on one of the funnest days of school vacation: Halloween!

Director of Social Projects Carmen de Alvarado invited some helpers to Pop Wuj on the morning of October 28 to prepare pumpkin pie for the Halloween party. Older students who aged out of the Family Support Center came from Llanos del Pinal (no easy feat given that unexpectedly, no buses were running that day!), and long-time Pop Wuj volunteer Ashley Aue brought participants from her  new project, Pathways, serving adults with developmental disabilities in Xela.

We used every part of the pumpkin—the seeds for roasting, the insides for pie, and the shells for jack o'lanterns! (Photo by Marie Barranco, Pop Wuj Social Work Spanish student)

Carmen and our bakers roll out dough for pie crust! The pies turned out absolutely delicious, but they didn't last long enough to be properly documented by our photographers. (Photo by Marie Barranco)

That afternoon, with dozens of pies of all sizes baked, we packed up in a hastily rented minibus to head out to the FSC Halloween party.

First we helped everyone get into their costumes. We had a huge jumble of witches, pirates, zombies, princesses, Spider-Men, vampires, a Little Red Riding Hood, and a butterfly. (Participating adults were a bat, a pirate, and a soccer witch in a jersey and spooky shawl.)

Trying to get everyone to keep their costume on, hold still, not show off their karate kicks, look at the camera, and smile at the same time proved to be the scariest part of Halloween.

Costumes on, we gathered in the party room to tell scary stories.

The room was lit only by jack o'lanterns.

Spooky jack o'lantern light completes Ilcy's witch look.

The kids and Carmen took turns telling scary stories. In Carmen's tale, dogs howled as the dead walked past. She asked the kids over and over, "What did the dogs do?" and over and over, they howled.

Stories told, we turned the lights back on, had pumpkin pie, and set up trick-or-treating. Kids approached Pop Wuj students in pairs to say either "Trick or Treat!" or "¡Dulce o Truco!"

Wilson and Manuel choose from mini Halloween notebooks offered by Pop Wuj Medical Spanish student Katrina. Another student, Will, handed out candy at the next trick-or-treating station.

Halloween is always a blast. After our party on Friday the 28th, the FSC had a few days of vacation for the children to celebrate Día de los Muertos (or Día de Todos los Santos) with their families. Check out our next blog post to see what they've been up to since then!

"Can you smile, Andrea?"

Welcome Back! Pop Wuj Begins Meeting with Scholarship Groups

Text and Photos by Amy Scheuren

With the new school yeart starting in mid-January, the Pop Wuj Scholarship Program is back in action.  We started with a meeting with mothers and students in San Juan Ostuncalco, where we currently have 14 scholarship students.  Our youngest student in this group is in 2nd grade and our oldest is Heidi, who is in her 5th year of law school.  Heidi was the student spotlight in a previous issue of Solidaridad, the Pop Wuj and Foundation Todos Juntos newsletter.  In San Juan, four students are in primary school, five are in basico (middle school), two are in high school, and three are in university.

Carmen meets with mothers and students in San Juan.

We also have scholarship meetings scheduled with the groups in Llanos del Pinal, Chirijquiac, and Xela in the coming days.

Most of the approximately 130 scholarships students in the Pop Wuj Scholarship Program are sponsored by individuals.  If you are interested in becoming a 'madrina' or 'padrino' of a student, please contact Amy at oficina@pop-wuj.org and/or donate via Foundation Todos Juntos.  The annual scholarship is $170 USD.  Gracias!

2015 Scholarship Assembly

Text by Amy Scheuren
Photos by Albizael Del Valle

Pop Wuj hosted its annual scholarship assembly on Wednesday, December 2, 2015. We invited all 131 scholarship students and their families to Pop Wuj for the annual event.  In 2015 Pop Wuj had 65 students studying in primary school, 32 students in basico (middle school), 21 in high school, 7 in post-secondary education, and 6 in special education programs.  Unfortunately not all of the students were able to attend the assembly.

The morning started with a medical check-up in the Pop Wuj clinic for all scholarship students.  Then the scholarship students wrote and drew cards to their sponsors (padrinos and madrinas) and then eagerly awaited the beginning of the assembly.

We weighed and measured all of the students.

Writing letters

Working on letters and pictures

Carmen de Alvarado recognized this year's graduates, including 15 who graduated from primary school, 7 from middle school, and 7 high school graduates.  Then Roney Alvarado spoke to the students and their families about how the Pop Wuj Scholarship Program works and the importance of educaiton.  We also had some music from Angelica, a scholarship student who will begin university in 2016. 

Carmencita speaking to the group of students and families

Practicing "Noche de Paz"

2016 primary school graduates (and a few family member members!)

Some of our middle school (basico) graduates

Three of our high school graduates

If you'd like to sponsor a student's education for 2016, please donate $170 USD via Foundation Todos Juntos and specify that you would like your donation to support a scholarship student.  Your student will be assigned to you early next year.  The new school year begins in mid-January!