Projects in Guatemala

Health

Maternal and Child Health

Volunteers in this project train health workers from the Ministry of Health and other organizations on adult learning principles, the experiential learning cycle, and motivational interviewing in order to enhance the quality of health education for women and community leaders. Alongside health workers, Volunteers train mothers and women with small children on health practices that prepare them for safer births and healthier children. Since community support is integral to the process of long-term adoption of health behaviors, Volunteers empower community members to implement initiatives that enhance collaboration and promote the adoption of healthy behaviors. Behavior change is a slow process, and Volunteers should have patience and be dedicated to empowering others while working with the community on long-term sustainable change.

Youth in Development

The goal of this project is to prepare Guatemalan youth to become healthy, productive, civically engaged adults. Volunteers do this by strengthening the knowledge and skills of youth to improve their well-being, life skills and capacity for community engagement; and increasing the skills of key community actors to implement positive youth development strategies in their communities. In partnership with the Ministry of Education, Volunteers work in public middle schools with youth from 13 to 18 years old. Volunteers also coordinate activities with municipal youth offices, local NGOs, and health professionals. Volunteers get to work on very structured environments teaching life skills, or more flexible and participatory processes like designing a service-learning project with youth. These provides opportunities for volunteers to really get a sense of what their community and the youth locally want to work on and adapt their action plan to meet the community where they are at.

Agriculture

Rural Extension

The purpose of this project is to support combined U.S.-Guatemalan efforts to increase food security among rural households in Guatemala through the strengthening of the delivery of national rural agricultural extension services. Volunteers focus their efforts on building technical skills of Ministry of Agriculture extension agents and community leaders related to effective adult learning strategies, participatory development and community engagement. This is done through one-on-one instruction and training on methodologies for participatory planning (in relation to socio-economic status, and culture), organization, and management, and supporting best agricultural practices through Volunteers improve the overall delivery of rural extension services. Volunteer efforts on collaboration and coordination with community members, organizations and municipal extension agents make them active partners in the development process.