Education in rural Guatemala faces two obstacles: inadequate investment of resources by the government; and extremely unequal distribution of educational opportunities among the population.  In much of rural Guatemala, children have very little access to education. Although 62% of Guatemala's population is located in rural areas, only 1.8% of high school students are from rural areas. The first step is to get the rural youth in school. The main obstacle to this is the cost of schooling.  Poor families see more value - in the short term - in sending their children to work rather than paying for their education. There is great need for continuing education beyond school classroom.  With high unemployment rates in rural areas, people need to acquire extra skills not offered in the classroom if they wish to find gainful employment.

Calacirya Foundation is teaming up with educators and professionals, from around the world, who can teach practical skills useful to the people of rural Guatemala. 

Currently, we are looking to host:

Carpenters, Welders, Computer professionals, English teachers, Mechanics and others . . .

In 1996 Guatemala spent 1.7 percent of GNP on education, ranking it at the bottom of the western hemisphere. Guatemala’s literacy rate (70.6%) trailed every country in the hemisphere except Haiti. (United Nations Development Program. Human Development Report 1999)

Guatemala is the only Spanish or Portuguese-speaking country in the hemisphere in which the average person receives less than three years of schooling.  (Inter-American Development Bank. Facing Up to Inequality: Economic and Social Progress in Latin America, 1998-1999 Report)

*Guatemala is a country with a very young population, 55% of the population is under 19.  A 2002 study on the situation of youth in Guatemala states that: In the area of education enormous backwardness is evident in Guatemalan society among young people. In 1998, 44.5% of young people had had no studies or declared that they had not received more than three years of primary schooling. If we add this to the number of those still in primary school, 72.5% of 15 to 19 year olds had never received any secondary schooling. In other words only 27.5% of the population of this age has received any secondary education (K. Bonilla and O. Perdomo: 2002, Basic Report, UNESCO/UNICEF).