Wonderful news from the Asturias Maldonado Foundation (AMF/FAM)

Picture
Guatemala's Coffee Growers Association Vice President, Lic. Alejandro Keller, honoring one of AMF/FAM's students, Deyli Yesenia Escobar Orozco.
FUNCAFE – the non-profit branch of the Guatemalan Coffee Growers Association – has chosen AMF/FAM has been selected among the 10 best programs in the country based on its social and educational programs. AMF/FAM is both grateful and proud to have been selected as a model educational program in Guatemala. 
In addition, two AMF/FAM students were recognized for academic excellence.  After FUNCAFE tabulated results from participants across the country, two AMF/FAM students won 1st place in their respective grades (5th grade & 6th grade) for reading proficiency.
Picture
From left to right: Carlos Miguel Alonzo Ramírez, 11 years old, 6th grade AMF/FAM student, winner of the First National Reading Proficiency Price by FUNCAFE, 2016. To his right, teacher Natalia Marta Domingo Castañón, elementary school head teacher, representing. Next to "Seño Martita", in a red top, Patricia Luz Mazriegos Romero, FUNCAFÉ's Education Coordinator and, Lic. Carlos Danilo Velásquez Quiquivix, Supervisor of Education of FUNCAFÉ, next to 10 years old, 5th grade AMF/FAM student, Deyli Yesenia Escobar Orozco, from Comunidad El Baluarte, also a First Price Medal winner for reading proficiency.

The role of nutrition in children to increase their capacity for learning
is a key part of AMF/FAM's educational program

Accomplishments:

Another successful school year at the Asturias Maldonado Foundation, AMF/FAM protect in San Marcos, Guatemala has come to a successful conclusion. Our third class at has graduated and is preparing options to pursue higher education. Three young women and nine young men have completed their High School degree with an emphasis in computer science. And dozens of kindergarten, elementary and middle school students have advanced their education, and their families have benefited from AMF/FAM self-sufficiency, nutritional and family health promotion.
 
Parents and families of AMF/FAM students and their extended communities have received training and support in implementing family vegetable gardens. Non-GMO seeds were dispensed and families with children enrolled in our K-12 program, received support from their own children who learned the how-to-does at school, and the regular follow-up visits from our community “Promotoras”. Crop alternatives and yearly farming calendar information has also been made available.

​Most families enrolled in our programs have succeeded in improving their family nutritional and vegetable diets, hygiene and health proficiency. The level of family cooperation in these families has not only been good for their overall wellbeing, including their ability to generate extra income thanks to the sale of surplus produce has opened new sources of family income as well. But the most important success has been the family’s ability to best work together in pursuing a better wellbeing as a family unit! 
 
​Most families enrolled in our programs have succeeded in improving their family nutritional and vegetable diets, hygiene and health proficiency. The level of family cooperation in these families has not only been good for their overall wellbeing, including their ability to generate extra income thanks to the sale of surplus produce has opened new sources of family income as well. But the most important success has been the family’s ability to best work together in pursuing a better wellbeing as a family unit!    ​

Access to safe drinking water and food security are
​the foundation of our educational model
Clean drinking water is always an issue in rural Guatemala. Therefore, AMF/FAM has always placed an especial emphasis in this important public health shortcoming. Using a low cost and technically very simple solution, we have been able to reduce student abstention to the very minimum, by providing ecologically sound, simple water filtration systems to all families of our student population, and other members of their surrounding communities. Our water filtration ecological systems have been one of our best items in our success card.
​Other family economic benefits include savings in terms of buying cooking fuel for gas and wood burning systems, by not having to boil water for drinking purposes. Besides that, children and family members have showed more inclination to drink plain water in a country where sugary soda water is equated as a safe drinking liquid.
Both our nutritional program as well as our safe drinking water program are the back bone of our academic success. Gastro intestinal deceases have been lowered in our targeted families, and family’s budget have been freed from the pertinent occurrence of trips to the pharmacy or the hospital (where available). The drainage of family financial resources spent in unnecessary medicine, hospital or medical fees, has been reduce to a bare minimum for our AMF/FAM families.