Hello everyone, This past summer I spent four weeks in Guatemala. I was there to do some work with an organization called Volunteer Petèn (www.volunteerpeten.com), whose mandate is to build community and infrastructure in San Andrès, a town of 5,000.My personal experience with Volunteer Petèn was very rewarding; I was able to share my skills and learn some new ones as well. I stayed with a local host family and learned how to speak some Spanish, helped to build a new pre-school, organized the library, and cut paths in the ecological park.Some pics of my experience:http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=167397&id=732590244&l=ada4570165While I was in San Andrès, I had the idea to create a project to address the issue of lack of access to computers and computer training.
How This Project Began One of the most eye-opening and rewarding opportunities I had was to teach Microsoft Excel to a local youth named Victor. By spending time with Victor and teaching him some Excel it became apparent that there is a strong desire for computers and computer training in San Andrès. It was common to see Victor and other young adults studying out-dated computer manuals. I became interested in finding a way to create the resources to help them learn.
I know what it is like to have a passion for something. I am very fortunate to have had access to an education, employment opportunities and support from friends which have allowed me to develop my computer skills. It upsets me to see someone with the same passion and aptitudes that I have, but the inability to use and develop them. This, as well as my respect for Volunteer Petèn and its work, motivated me to develop a project to provide computers not only to Victor but to the community of San Andrès as well.
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 The Results (as of November 30, 2009) The goal of this project was to raise $2,000 by November 30, 2008 hrough an email campaign and this web page. While it took a bit longer than anticipated, $2,160 was raised as of December 31, 2008. I returned to San Andres for two weeks in March. Mateo, the director of Volunteer Petèn, gave me the opportunity to teach Excel to the students in his new School of Natural Resources course using the new computers. I taught basic Excel to the 24 students in groups of 8. It was a rewarding experience - I learned a lot and I think they learned a few things too. You can access my blog for more details of this experience - http://tp77.livejournal.com/ In an unexpected twist, when I met up with Victor (the youth that inspired me to start this project) he revealed that he needed financial support to finish a 10 month course he is currently taking. I agreed to pay his tuition, in exchange for monitoring and teaching MS Office on the new computers. This will hopefully prove to be a win-win situation for the new computer lab and Victor 
I would like to thank the following people for helping me develop a fundraising strategy for this project (in chronological order):
Nancy Henderson Aprile Schwartz Laura Osborne Monica Mahendro Irshad Osman David Elliott Penny Hiddema John Hiddema
As well, I'd like to thank my mom for giving me the first donation :-) And of course, thanks to all 40 generous donors and to you for your interest.
Paul Thorne |
