Project Description:

To build the capacity of Mayan women to lead their families and communities to increased well-being, including better health and higher incomes, through leadership and asset management training. Participant savings will be matched one to one (to a maximum of $100) for an investment selected by each participant.

This five year project will improve the quality of life and standard of living of families in marginalized communities in Guatemala through the promotion of women’s education, leadership, health and economic development.
This project provides weekly literacy and numeracy classes to women in marginalized communities; it utilizes weekly classes to train women in financial management (including budgeting and savings) and family health matters; and, it also promotes asset accumulation among needy women through one to one savings matches (incentives).

Students will be given the opportunity to accumulate savings in a formal financial institution during their participation in classes as part of financial training; these savings will be matched, one to one, up to a maximum of $100 per student, upon their successful graduation from the Program, and applied toward a project or item benefiting their family or community.

Update from the field: December 2011

Literacy classes began in February 2011 in five communities in Comitancillo and five communities in Todos Santos, Guatemala. The aim of the classes is for women to become literate and to learn about personal savings with the help of the savings match program.

Many of the women who attend literacy classes have had to overcome great hardship in their lives and, despite not being able to go to school when they were children, they understand the importance of becoming literate even at a later stage in life. All of them try to persevere in their learning despite their fears. With encouragement from their teachers and fellow classmates, they all keep trying even if they don’t always succeed in every task. Most of the participants will say that they have two big desires in becoming literate: the first is that they would like to be able to help their children with their homework; and the second is that they would like to be able to sign documents with an actual signature instead of with their fingerprints.

The women in these communities know that their lives will improve and, most importantly for them, the lives of their children will improve if they become literate.


Update from the field: April 2011

The 222 participants in 10 Guatemalan communities in 2010 were taught reading, writing and math skills. Spanish was taught in six of these communities and a Mam-Spanish bilingual program was implemented in four Todos Santos communities.  In Todos Santos, the promoter had already begun working with participants in January and February, teaching them the alphabet and single-digit numbers. By April 2010, they had begun forming simple words. Literacy training has also enabled participants to improve their Spanish skills, as this is not their first language. In Todos Santos, 90% of participants in four groups passed the second evaluation. Through participation in the grade one groups, women have an opportunity to realize that they are able to learn and achieve academic goals. Therefore, 80 women from four 2009 grade one groups in Comitancillo participated in a second year of literacy training provided by the national adult literacy organization in Guatemala, CONALFA.


Update from the field: September 2010

The literacy and numeracy learning in all of the groups is progressing well. Newspapers and monthly bulletins are distributed to all participants, both past and present. A mid-term assessment is underway to verify the level of learning in the groups. There are 227 literacy participants in the first level of literacy and numeracy learning, and many more participating in the second and third levels. The first year learners are accumulating personal savings, and provided with health, environmental, human rights and other training during the literacy classes.

Update from the field: May 2010

Literacy and leadership classes started in February for the 2010 year.  There are 123 first grade literacy students in Comitancillo, 80 second grade, and 40 third grade students.  In Todos Santos, there are 104 first grade literacy students and 60 second grade students.

One of these participants is Sylvia García Miranda, a young mother of six who participated in CAUSE´s literacy program for beginners in 2008.  Sylvia lives with her parents-in-law, her husband and their children in a community called Ixmoco, in the municipality of Comitancillo, Guatemala.  Members of the community, including herself, cultivate coffee.  When it´s not coffee season, she grows maíz.  At home, she takes care of her children, prepares food, cleans, washes clothes and raises a pig.  Her children help her and those who are old enough to attend primary school.

When Sylvia first entered the program, she found the classes difficult.  Now she is able to read names, bills, homework and papers from her children’s teachers and some books they have at home.  She has liked everything about the classes and is happy and grateful for the opportunity to learn.  Her family wants to improve their lives in the future.  Sylvia hopes to continue developing her literacy skills and to continue her education.  Her new skills will enable her to serve in a position in which she can support her community.

Update from the field: November 2009

When Edubina Tomas Cardona Rodríguez moved to San Martin, Guatemala at the age of eight , she yearned to study at school with her new neighbours. But Edubina was almost blind and could not make out the letters on a page—no amount of tears would convince her parents to let her stay in school.
Sixteen years later, Edubina received an ocular operation which allows her to see with the help of glasses. She was able to have three children and perform all the usual household duties of a Guatemalan mother. But she still could not read. “I couldn’t even distinguish numbers on a cell phone,” she explains. But with the help of CAUSECanada and CONALFA, the Guatemalan National Committee for Literacy, Edubina has been attending literacy classes for the past two years.

Enthusiastically, Edubina explains how wonderful it is to learn letters and numbers. “I know all the numbers from one to one hundred! And I can read basic words like mama and papa.” Edubina hopes she can continue learning to read and write, and perhaps even graduate from grade six.
Though it is not easy to attend classes as well as have time to perform other household duties, Edubina has been motivated by the classes and plans to solicit the Women’s Committee in her village to organize more literacy classes within their community. She gives thanks toCAUSE Canada and CONALFA for providing her with the opportunity to accomplish a lifelong dream.

Update from the field: March 2009

Margarita Lopez Perez lives in a remote village in the municipality of Comitancillo, Guatemala. Like most women in her community, Margarita has lived most of her life unable to read and write. As a child, she explains, her family did not consider education to be important; she was never given the opportunity to attend school. But eight months ago, along with twenty other women in her community, including one of her daughters, Margarita was given the opportunity to attend classes.

Communicating excitedly in Mam, the local Mayan language, Margarita says that with the help of CAUSE Canada and partner organization CONALFA (the Guatemalan National Committee for Literacy), she is now able to write her name. She explains that theCAUSE savings match was a great motivation for her to continue learning to read, despite the challenges she faced as a mother taking on the additional responsibility of learning literacy later in life. Having saved $80 CDN over the course of her eight month classes, Margarita has just received a 100% savings match for good attendance and participation, meaning that she has $160 to spend on needed items.

Margarita says the savings match is “beautiful, because in my community, we never knew how to save money, but now I have twice what I saved!” Margarita’s hope is to open a small business in the town centre, where she plans to sell new clothing on market day. She explains that her 11 children will all help with the business. As a native Mam speaker, Margarita’s greatest desire is to continue learning to speak, read and write in Spanish so that one day she may communicate with people who aren’t from her community.