Mennonite
Central
Committee

Guatemala: K'ekchi' Saturday Education Program

May 2004

"All of my children need to study, especially the girls. I don't want my daughters to be shy and afraid. My daughters are smart enough to study, too." Felipe Ca'al, a Mennonite leader, has quite different views on the value and worth of women than most of his K'ekchi' neighbors. Felipe believes that his children, whether male or female, deserve the benefits that education brings.

For his 20-year-old daughter, Elda, this has made all the difference. Elda, much like her father, is an outgoing, intelligent and forward-thinking go-getter. Felipe took himself from abject poverty and sharecropping to become a community and church leader, and the president of a national cooperative. Elda has that same initiative and drive, and, were it not for Felipe's attitudes towards education and women, those qualities would be sadly wasted. K'ekchi' have one of the lowest literacy rates in Guatemala (whose overall literacy is the 3rd lowest in the Western Hemisphere) and women are even more excluded from the educational system. Most traditional K'ekchi' consider even the most basic of education for women to be a waste of time since they are only expected to have babies, make tortillas, wash clothes, and clean house. What good is it, then, for them to know how to read and write? Because of the lack of exposure to the mind broadening experience of education, most women are timid and shy, afraid of new experiences, no matter what their God-given talents and strengths are.

Elda's strengths have certainly not been wasted. She was in the first class at Bezaleel, scoring in the top of her class. She also finished with top marks in the two years she studied at the Saturday School Program. She is currently studying at a private high school, working towards an accounting degree. And yet again, she's getting top marks, not just for the few women in her year, but for her whole class.

Besides the obvious benefits of education in terms of jobs and opportunities, Elda has also been able to cultivate her innate initiative, drive, and charisma in a way not usually open to most K'ekchi' women. Elda, as she makes abundantly clear to anyone who crosses her path, is certainly more confident and outgoing than the average K'ekchi’ women. "I'm not really scared of new things as a lot of the women I know are. I'm confident from being in school and doing well that I can take on just about anything." Through her studying at various Mennonite study institutions supported by Global Family, Elda has been able to cultivate her natural gifts and abilities, gain confidence, and become the woman God wants to her to be.

 

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