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Maya Educational Foundation |
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| Route 106 / P. O. Box 38 South Woodstock, VT 05071-0038, USA Tel. (802) 457-1199 / Fax (802) 457-2212 mayaedfund@mayaedufound.org |
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2003 Guatemala Trip Three MEF board members traveled to Guatemala from September 23 to October 6, 2003. They visited all projects and programs and saw many of the students who receive MEF scholarships. On impossible roads they made their way into the western highlands of Guatemala, the majestic Cuchumatanes where poverty and hardship are the daily bread of the Mayas. It is all the more impressive to hear the students from Jacaltenango and Todos Santos explain how they do not mind getting up at 3 or 4 in the morning to take a bus to Huehuetenango, a three to four hour ride, to go to school on Saturdays. Their thirst for higher education is clear. Those students who come from remote locations and go to school full-time have the added economic burden of having to rent a room in Huehuetenango or Quetzaltenango or in the capital and having to buy food. But this sacrifice is worth it to them it they can improve their chances for a better life. During a moment of frustration on the trip one board member had wondered whether it was worth it (i.e., the effort MEF puts into the projects). Fate answered the question a short time later in Jacaltenango: Not far from the church the group happened to meet a graduate of the university scholarship program, Mardoqueo B., who is now a forestry specialist and teacher. He was so pleased about the chance encounter and praised the program highly for making it possible for him and others to achieve more. The students in Guatemala City came to a large meeting and after pleasantries had been exchanged were not shy about bringing up points of concern to them. They appreciate the becas but also ask MEF to raise the scholarship amounts as inflation continues to eat away so much of it. They also described how hard they are working to make it at the university level and that most of them have to work at least one job to make ends meet. They also told of discrimination at the universities against them, especially towards the Maya women.
Marilyn Moors was voted president of the MEF at the November 2003 board meeting. Active and dynamic she will lead MEF into the next year and confront challenges ahead with expertise and dedication. We thank departing board members, and president Victor Montejo and Kay Warren for their good will and involvement on the board over the past years. We welcome as new board members: Isaac Cohen and Christine Eber, and as honorary board members Mimi and Robert Laughlin.
Recently MEF’s Guatemalan colleagues have obtained long awaited government approval for their own NGO with non-profit status. This new foundation is called Fundación para Estudios y Profesionalización Maya (FEPMaya) and allows Guatemalan and international donors to give directly to support projects, including the Programa de Becas Mayas. To contact them, please use the Guatemalan address for Programa de Becas Mayas till further notice, e-mail: bmayas@intelnet.net.gt
We received the good news that more authors donated their book royalties to MEF. They are Christine Eber and Christine Kovic, Women of Chiapas: Making History in Times of Struggle and Hope; and Ronald Wright, Stolen Continents: Conquest and Resistance in the Americas. MEF continues to receive royalties from Marilyn Moors and James Loucky’s book: The Maya Diaspora: Guatemalan Roots, New American Lives. We thank them very much. While in Guatemala last September, W. George Lovell gave a moving reading from his book A Beauty that Hurts at the Canadian Ambassador’s home, with proceeds to benefit MEF. This winter Capital City Press in Montpelier, Vermont donated the printing of MEF’s Annual Report 2003. The Daniele Agostino Foundation has helped with grants in the Guatemalan Highlands for younger children to go to elementary and middle school, and for women in Chiapas to go to university. One foundation that wishes to remain anonymous has recently given $35,000 towards the creation of a women weavers’ resource center in the Guatemalan Highlands. And our many individual donors have made possible the continuation of this important work. MEF is fortunate to have such stellar supporters and thanks them very much and if you have not yet participated, we would like to count you among them.
2002 A highlight for the Programa de Becas Mayas in 2002 was the generous donation of seven modern computers by the Nagata-Yamauchi Educational Fund, which has been doing cyber-development work in several Guatemalan communities. We have a commitment from this foundation for more equipment.
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