UEnd Blog

Project Snapshot:

Project Cost: $5,000

 Lives Affected: 200+

 Dollars Raised: $2,226

 Dollars Needed: $2,774

$5000 will enable 25 women in a village to take literacy classes for one year, including health, human rights and financial management training. Their savings are also matched for a household project.

This five-year project will improve the quality of life and standard of living for families living in marginalized communities through the promotion of

1)   Education

2)   Leadership

3)   Health

4)   Economic development

Students will be given the opportunity to accumulate savings in a formal financial institution during their participation in classes as part of financial training.

CAUSE Canada is an organization focused on the implementation of responsive, integrated community development in parts of the world where international assistance programs are under-represented.

To learn more about this project, click here.

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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

UEnd loves sharing information and stories about our over 50 active poverty-ending projects that anyone can donate to. So we’re starting a little series, (well, it’s a big series) that will focus on one project per week over the next year. Every Monday we’re going to feature a project from the UEnd.org website to give you a better idea of what it’s all about, who’s involved, what makes it so important and how we are connected to those projects. Every week, a new project. Every week, a new reason to gift different.

The Project of the Week for August 22, 2011 is Home Improvements Empowering Women; a CAUSE Canada project located in Guatemala. This post was written by UEnd volunteer Bree Cameron.

Lives affected: 50 women per year
Funding requirement: $15,559.00
Amount raised: $545
Current need: $15,014.00

CAUSE Canada has been working in Guatemala to help the indigenous Mayan women lead their families and communities to increased well-being, including better health and higher incomes, through leadership and asset management training. 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.

Leadership is often something we take for granted in everyday life – your teacher offering you guidance on an assignment, your boss giving you career advice, your parents teaching you how to drive; these are all examples of leadership.

Leadership can not only help us to achieve a goal, or finish a tricky task – it can shape you as a person. We all have people we look up to and admire, whether it is a celebrity, an accomplished sports personality or a successful business person. They inspire us to work harder, dream bigger and reach higher to make a difference and be the best person we can – but what about those who are not as fortunate as we are? Who do they turn to for guidance or advice?

The CAUSE Canada Home Improvements Empowering Women initiative is providing the woman of Guatemala with the knowledge and resources to become leaders and in turn, encourage other women to become leaders by teaching them self-esteem, personal savings and budgeting, health and human rights.

Leaders are not always the people in magazines or newspapers, there are everyday people such as the Mayan women – they exude strength, the strength to remain focused and keep going even during times of difficulty. Leaders have the ability to make everyone feel included – like a family who supports and accepts each other. A good leader is able to teach others and pass on knowledge as well as skills.

We all need leaders in our lives – people to guide the way and teach others the qualities of leadership. The partnership between CAUSE Canada and UEnd is ensuring that the Mayan women of Guatemala have the ability to develop their leadership skills and in turn, allow them the opportunity to inspire tomorrow’s leaders.

We hope you will consider sending a donation on behalf this project as a gift to someone in your life. Perhaps this someone is a leader in your eyes. Perhaps this is someone who simply makes a difference in people’s lives. Let them know they’re special with a UEnd gift card for this amazing project of the week. Click here to make it happen.


Women planting trees in a nursery in Comitancillo, Guatemala.

Update from the field: April 2011

“The leadership program had 66 participants in nine communities. They learned about various themes centered on personal, family and community well-being. These topics include leadership, self-esteem, personal savings and budgeting, health and human rights.

Community projects were integrated into the Guatemalan leadership program this year with the intention of giving the women an opportunity to apply their leadership skills and equipping the communities to improve themselves. Participants and others in the community, usually members of formal leadership groups, were trained in Appreciative Inquiry, community mapping and project planning. Women from the literacy program also participated in some of these trainings.”

You may have noticed as you browse through our projects that there are tabs at the bottom of the page and updates added to the landing page on a quarterly basis. We call this proof of impact here at UEnd.

What is proof of impact? We want you to see the impact of your gifts on the projects that you have given to. We believe that if you can see the impact, you will be more likely to get involved and understand that your gifts no matter how small really do make a difference in places where extreme poverty exists.

Think of a pebble thrown into still waters, the ripple keeps spreading out inpacting the entire surface of the water. The same is true for international development work when done the way that our partners do.

You have heard a few stories over the last couple of weeks. Using The Post Hurricane School Construction Project run by Change for Children as an example, let’s dig down into a project to collect the information you need to make an informed decision.

The front page will show the latest updates from the field- or proof of impact for your dollars spent- in this case building a school for the local community. There are two updates one from Jan 09 and another from June 09. At the bottom of the page you will find a tab for Photos. Click on this to see photos of the project and the community. If the community has good internet access we can get videos but extreme poverty and internet access are not usually synonymous. You will see this is the case here but there are some great photos.

When you go through the project page, you will see that Change for Children’s approach to projects is a truly sustainable community development one; by which we mean that the solution is developed by the community with the aid of the program taking into account local capacities, culture and causes of the issue/s. To find out more about the organization you can go to the folders on the right side for fast facts or click on the link in the project title for more information.

For information on the town of Comitancillo, Guatemala click on the link below the project title for the town name. Once there you will see that Change for Children has several projects addressing different aspects of the local community. This means that Change for Children is practising good international development approaches as they are impacting more than just one group in isolation. In fact they are workiing on literacy for women and children, the lack of a school, women’s empowerment and leadership development.

If you want information on the Country of Guatemala, click on the country link.

For quick facts on the specific project go to the right side of the front page. There you will find number of people impacted, project budget, and start date. For more information on what the organization hopes to achieve through the project, go to the bottom of the page and click on the tabs. the best one is the intended outcomes. When you read the intended outcomes, the field updates often make more sense.

That is pretty much the map for ferreting out all the information on a project that our website can give you. Now do your own searchs on projects that interest you.

Thanks for helping to change the world!