The latest Bottle School!

Our Win/Win/Win Project

A town in northwest Guatemala is undergoing a transformation. It has a thriving school, but a serious shortage of usable secure classrooms. It also had the common third world problem - growing mounds of plastic litter.

That town is Xesuj - it is our Club that has contributed to its metamorphosis.

Under the direction of the Hugs It Forward organization, the town children spent months gathering discarded plastic bottles and other plastic litter from the town and its surroundings. Townspeople, primarily the women, spent many hours stuffing litter into the bottles. In the meantime, village men were taught basic construction skills while erecting the reinforced concrete framework of a new school building. . More recently all worked together to carefully arrange those bottles between wire mesh barriers, providing the core of inexpensive insulating walls. After two coats of cement plaster and paint, and the installation of a roof, a new and secure school house will be finished.

As you will see from the photo, only one wall had yet to receive its first coat of plaster. That was several weeks ago and we understand that much more progress has been made. In fact, by the end of this month Xesuj will have brand new classrooms ready for those hard working children.

In many ways this is an ideal project. An area is cleared of the modern scourge of plastic litter, townspeople learn valuable skills, and a school is built. Clearly that is a win/win/win victory. Because the beneficiaries have invested their own time and effort and have learned construction skills, the school buildings will be valued and well maintained. I could add still another “win”. Our Club gets to enjoy working on such an intriguing project.

Members may remember that our Club made a more substantial contribution to one of the first schools that Hug It Forward developed. Although our $1,000 contribution for Xesuj was more modest, it was enough to pay for a sixth of one complete school room!

Heenal, our correspondent in Hugs It Forward, writes that out of all the communities they have worked in, Xesuj has some of the most passionate and dedicated teachers and the most outgoing and ambitious students. He also sends special thinks to our Club, adding, “You believed in us early in our history, and thanks to you we are able to go from strength to strength.”

Heenal hopes that members of our Club will seize the opportunity for some “Voluntourism”, a one week visit to Guatemala that includes good accommodations, standard tourism, and a day working with villagers in the actual construction of a school.. Go to http://hugitforward.org/schools/Xesuj and first read more about Xesuj, then at the very bottom click on “Help build a bottle school.”