Thanks to the leadership of Hugo Suarez – a business owner based in Antigua, Guatemala – great strides have been made in changing the lives of many families in the village of Pop ‘abaj, Guatemala. Donations and several mission trips have helped support this village with food, housing and clean water.
A group of women in Pop Abaj, carrying the food they will use for their families.
Pop Abaj children enjoying a happy meal in the mountains.
Women in Pop Abaj preparing food for their families.
Pop Abaj women preparing beans and other common Guatemalan foods to serve.
Escaping poverty is very difficult for many families in Guatemala.
The goal of this effort is to create a path for these families to do just that. The first step is to ensure the basic human needs of these families are met such as food, housing, and access to water are met. Once those needs are satisfied we can address the root causes of poverty, such as a lack of education and a lack of opportunity.
This program is not a handout; it is a stabilization effort that will ultimately allow the families to be healthy so the kids can avail themselves of educational opportunities and the parents can focus on economic opportunities such as farming, raising pigs, etc. The goal is to ensure the village can become self sustaining and once these villagers are able to support their own needs, the program would end.
Each Tuesday and Thursday of every month; Ana and Rosita, two women employed for this purpose, take food to the village and engage the women of the village to help prepare meals for the families and kids. Again, this is not a hand-out. The women living in Pop ‘abaj must bring wood for the cooking fires and participate in the meal prep which they do willingly and with grateful hearts. In addition, the families are required to enroll their kids in school and ensure they attend so in this way we can link the food program with education which has worked very well.
The Needs
This program is entirely supported by private donors. Right now Tuesdays are covered but the organizations that was supporting Thursdays is no longer able to do and we are seeking additional donors, willing to commit to a monthly gift to sustain this portion of the program.
The program costs $1,000 per month for the Thursday portion. We are seeking 10-20 donors donors willing to commit $100/month or $50/month to support this need.
If you are unable to provide regular support, a one-time donation of any size is helpful. When this program is fully funded through the end of 2020, we will suspend donations for this specific need and keep available donations for the other basic needs in the Pop ‘abaj village.Donate one time gifts or recurring gifts to provide the financial support needed to continue this program. To donate specifically to this food program, please click here and select “Guatemala Food and Education System” from the dropdown menu.
Pop ‘abaj Housing Needs
Over the past few years, funded entirely by private donations, the team led by Hugo Suarez has built several homes replacing very dilapidated and unsafe mud-huts the families had been living in. The homes typical of this village were originally made of mud and sticks / tree branches and consisted of dirt floors.
The new homes have a real door, tin roof, windows and concrete floors. Receiving home-owners are required to support the construction, which they are willing to do. Each of the new homes costs approximately $3,500 US to build with additional funds needed for cooking areas and latrines. Currently there are over twenty-six families on the waiting list for homes and the new homes are providing life changing support to these families improving their health and wellness and allowing them to send the kids to school and have a safe environment to use to raise their families.
Lower Pop ‘abaj Water Needs
A portion of the Pop ‘abaj village sits roughly a mile below the main part of Pop ‘abaj. This area is down a steep, mostly dirt road from the upper portion; and the people there do not have access to running water or power.
About 150 yards down a very steep hill, well below lower Pop ‘abaj, there is a natural spring that flows year-round and has been tested as a good source of clean water.
The solution is to build a concrete cistern that will be gravity fed by the natural spring and then pipe and pump water from that location to a cistern to be built in above the village so the entire area of lower Pop ‘abaj can be gravity fed safe water.
This work is under way, aided in part by our FBC mission team but additional funding will be needed to complete the piping work, finish the cisterns and add the needed pumps, etc. As there is no power available, the pumps will have to be diesel or gasoline powered adding to the on-going costs to sustain the system.
