Greetings from San Bernabé Vista Hermosa, Guatemala!

San Bernabé is a small mountain village in Guatemala. It was founded on March 13, 1986, by farm workers fleeing the violence of the civil war that targeted the indigenous population. Sixteen young families obtained a loan from an organization to buy the property on which the village sits. After one year in which they ate solely corn tortillas and lived in nylon tents, only 6 families remained. These families form the core of the village and its over 250 current residents.

 The majority of the villagers work in the countryside cultivating crops. Those few who earn a salary receive approximately $8 per day. It is a hard life but one that is necessary in order to feed their families.

The village has a small elementary school where the children study up to the sixth grade. The government provided to the school last year only one teacher to teach 53 students in grades 1 through 6! The students had NO library books in their school and there are no public libraries where they can check out books to read.

The older children were required to travel, on their own, to larger municipalities to attend junior high and high school. There are no public schools in this part of the country. Their parents must therefore pay a portion of their $8 per day salary for tuition. A secondary education, without assistance, is therefore impossible for the majority of the students who live in San Bernabé due to their economic circumstances. The Coghill Foundation provided scholarships to 19 students this year to attend junior high and high school. Due to the poor education at the nearby schools, however, they studied together in the elementary school an additional 2 hours every night and 4 hours on Saturdays and Sundays. Many of them have NEVER had a novel to read. They read only handouts from their teachers, assignments on the white board and newspapers.

The community is therefore building, with the economic assistance of others, a junior high in the village in which the students can continue their studies, with a computer lab and a space for a future library for the entire community. We appreciate any assistance that you may be able to provide in this effort.