From Elmbrook Rotary Club

Guatemala Literacy Project Seeking Participants

              Our Guatemala Literacy Project is in its ninth year and this coming February (travel dates February 23 and return on March 1, 2020) our 10th team will go to Antigua, Guatemala for one week of service activities organized by the St. Paul, MN based NGO, Common Hope (www.commonhope.org).  As in the past the visit will involve building a house for a Common Hope client family, assisting with social work calls (no language proficiency needed), teaching math concepts and/or leading craft exercises in the partner elementary schools, visiting client families in their homes, and doing maintenance and other jobs at the CH compound.  This year we will be working in the medical center classifying and stocking medications and doing general tasks as determined by its staff.

We have had teams as small as 10 and as large as 17 and have directly involved 26 ERC Rotarians plus 7 other D-6270 Rotarians (including 3 PDGs), and more than 40 additional individuals representing spouses, children, grandchildren, and friends of Rotarians, on past trips. Many have traveled more than once.

This year a core group of related volunteers that travel in alternate years cannot go, opening up roughly 4 to 6 spaces for outside participants. We are hopeful that a few new visiting Rotarians can join our team for 2020, and ask that anyone interested, either for the upcoming trip, or in general (we do visit other clubs and organizations from time to time and actually have spawned a few “spin-off” teams), will consider participating or learning more.

-Antigua is a UNESCO World Heritage city and being in the highlands is blessed with perfect weather at the time of year we travel.  Daily highs in the upper 70s, cool mornings, upper 40s, and blue skies are the norm, and beyond a brief shower occasionally there is no rain.  Because of the climate there also are no mosquitos! A perfect alternative to a “vacation”, just as much fun but come back with a sense of pride in what was accomplished. Every year some team members extend for R&R and tourism at Lake Atitlán and other places in the country. Lake Atitlán is a wonderful location for relaxing, outdoor activities, visiting small villages around it by boat, etc.

Estimated costs are $1000 per person for room/board, all transportation in country from GUA airport back to GUA airport, PLUS whatever airfare is, which as you know varies.  Insurance and all translation services are included too.  Participants live in the Common Hope Villa (we call it the “Compound” about a mile out of town on the road south toward Volcan de Agua.  It is not fancy but comfortable and clean, food is very good, and there are some double rooms with bath (no shower though, that’s “down the hall”) and also multiple bedrooms which are assigned depending on the female/male mix and couples/singles considerations.  

This link     https://www.flickr.com/photos/commonhope/albums/with/72157707150965284

will take you to slide shows of past Common Hope teams. Our most recent trip is in the third or fourth row.  Look at that and let me know if it does not strike you as a wonderful and worthwhile week of International Service, Rotary style!

We would like to have the team size settled really soon, so that Common Hope can begin planning for our week. Please contact Erik Moeser, Elmbrook RC at emmcsm77@wi.rr.com or 262-252-3693 if you are interested.