Our Projects

In 1999, we were able to buy a second-hand US school bus and fit it up as a mobile library with 2000 books, using funds provided by the Basel municipal and rural governments. This bus now has a fixed daily schedule, visiting various schoolsin country areas and also a teacher training college. On the bus the school children can read suitable books selected for them by the librarian and their teachers.

We have set up 25 school libraries and 7 small mobile libraries in little wooden busses, which are left at a school for two to three weeks depending on the size of the school and then taken to another school. These mini-libraries have about 300 books each. In Nahualá, we have opened a village library with 3000 books and 2 PCs with the help of the Swiss Embassy in Guatemala. Thanks to various companies such as Novartis Basel, Mathys Bettlach, Bison Electronics Malters and Basel rural government, we have been able to adapt used PCs here in Switzerland, install Spanish software and put them to good use again in training colleges, libraries and schools.

In 2000 we enlarged an existing school in San Bartolomé Becerra by adding 2 more class-rooms, with financial help from Basel city government. The opening ceremony was attended by the children, their parents, officials and also a group from Switzerland.

We have been able to give small grants to 34 young women studying at the Socorro teacher training college. This will help them to finish their studies, since the income earned by their families is not enough to cover the cost.

In January every year, we give children in the first grade a „Bolsa escolar“ containing essential school materials, since  parents with a lot of children do not have enough money to buy these things.