The Miguel Angel Asturias Academyis a non-profit school in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala that breaks cycles of poverty, racism and sexism through popular education. These are stories from the ground. Although a school in Guatemala isn't directly related to US politics, our stories touch on themes of immigration, education and economic justice.
Apologies that this has been such a long absence between when I first started the series—I’ve been on the road and hadn’t calculated how much energy doing a (semi)daily series would take. Since then, I’ve been doing some writing ahead so that I should be able to post nearly every day. We’ll see how it goes.
ANYHOO…here it goes. The economic problems faced by the US have not just stayed there locally, they are trickling down to us here in Quetzaltenango and causing massive problems for our students and their families. Bottom line: elementary-age children are dropping out of school so that they can work to support their families.
Why? How? More on the flip.
We pride ourselves on being the most accessible school in Guatemala. Through our scholarships program we have roughly a third of our students (no-income families) studying with us. Other families pay a nominal expense which is just 16% of a comparable private school education. This amount, while small on a per-student basis, covers approximately half of our overall annual budget.
Unemployment here is a staggering TWENTY PERCENT. Underemployment is a significant problem as well. As a result, roughly 80% of the country lives on less than two dollars a day. This means that many families use their children as workers to fill the gap so that they can get by.
There’s also less money coming back from the US from family members and more Guatemalans being deported every day. The end result is a crunch for jobs. For skilled labor (HS degree, University degree, mastery of a trade) this is no problem, but there is a glut of unskilled labor trying to eke out a living doing things like shining shoes, selling candy and other low-earning jobs. (Repubs would optimistically call these folks independent contractors or entrepreneurs)
So paying tuition for our first month (January) is easy. Ditto the next few months. Right about this point in the year the budget for most families is stretched pretty thin, and they are looking forward to the two months where they don’t pay tuition to save up a little more money. This is the point of the year where families come in to tell us that they aren’t able to pay.
Let me be clear on the following point: WE DO NOT TURN OUR STUDENTS AWAY. We keep them enrolled (unlike all other schools) if their parents are behind on payments.
But this causes stress on the budget, but it’s stress we’d gladly take over having students on the street.
...unfortunately, there are families here that need the money desperately and cannot afford to take a long-term view. So, when I saw one of my fourth graders last week missing school to pass out fliers, we made a sad but knowing eye contact. And I redoubled my efforts to make sure that every ten year old could afford to go to school.
Like always, I welcome your questions in the comments section.