UEnd Blog

Project snapshot:

• Lives affected (including yours): 50

• Project cost: $15,559t

• Dollars raised $595

• Dollars needed: $14,964

• Cause Sector: Education, Gender Equality

Project Description:

To build the capacity of indigenous Mayan women to lead their families and communities to increased well-being, including better health and higher incomes, through leadership and asset management training. Participant savings will be matched one to one (to a maximum of $100) for an investment selected by each participant.

This five year project will improve the quality of life and standard of living of families in marginalized communities in Guatemala through the promotion of women’s education, leadership, health and economic development.

This project provides weekly leadership classes to women in marginalized communities; it utilizes weekly classes to train women in financial management (including budgeting and savings) and family health matters; and, it also promotes asset accumulation among needy women through one to one savings matches (incentives) 

Students will be given the opportunity to accumulate savings in a formal financial institution during their participation in classes as part of financial training; these savings will be matched, one to one, up to a maximum of $100 per student, upon their successful graduation from the Program, and applied toward a project or item benefiting their family or community.

Guatemala is a country located in Central America, bordered by Mexico to the north and west, the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, Belize to the northeast, the Caribbean to the east and Honduras and El Salvador to the southeast. It’s areas is 108,890 km² with an estimated population of 13,276,517.

When researching Guatemala it is remarkable to find that the country suffers from a great imbalance of economic, resource and opportunity distribution. This kind of imbalance can be generally attributed to a lack of education and lack of access to productive resources. Our POTW focuses on rectifying this imbalance to bring productive development into the hands of the very people who can benefit most.

As most of us are aware, deficiencies in education generally lead to higher poverty levels, greater suffering from diseases and poorer living conditions due to an inability to know what to do to better ones situation. By teaching Guatemalan women financial management, dealing with family health matters and by promoting business growth, this project enables their own personal growth and the prospect of betterment and a personal sense of accomplishment that will affect many generations to come.

As of April 2011, a total of 567 women had benefited from micro-loans and/or business training which increased their capacity to generate and control income and enhanced their abilities to manage their resources. This has put the power to grow and thrive in their own hands and has enhanced the lives of the women involved, their families and children and, therefore, prepared the next generation to succeed in the future.

UEnd:Poverty, in partnership with CAUSE Canada wishes to continue to assist Guatemalan women and their families in their growth and knowhow, enabling them to become self-sufficient, through education and their own, assisted business development efforts.

Your donations to this project initially touch the lives of a few but the ripple this causes affects generations. With projects like this it is easy to see how a little can turn into a world of difference for someone else and bring us steps closer to ending world poverty.

How can you help? Follow this project on the UEnd.org website and if you feel like this is something you’d like to donate to, please do. Or if you have a special occasion coming up like a family members or a friends birthday, send them a UEnd gift card for this project.

sources: Wikipedia