CRS Work in Guatemala

Using vital resources from the United States government and private donors, Catholic Relief Services strives to fight chronic hunger and spur economic growth in Guatemala. Addressing a wide array of needs, CRS programs work to increase agricultural production, invest in natural resource management, provide educational and health services, and promote nutrition and hygiene among vulnerable mothers and their children.

Our programs are implemented primarily in the departments of San Marcos, in the northwest along the Mexican border, and Baja Verapaz, which lies in the middle of the country. These programs reach more than 16,000 families and encourage the participation of municipal leaders and local community councils.

Agriculture and Environment

With little or no access to capital, markets or effective farming techniques, poor Guatemalan farmers—most of them indigenous Mayans—struggle to make a living off the nation's poorest soil. Viable land is concentrated in the hands of a few in Guatemala, and even the most basic irrigation systems are out of reach for many people. Farmers fortunate enough to own land are forced to farm plots too small or too fragmented to adequately sustain their families. Meanwhile, pressure for land has resulted in deforestation and soil erosion, exacerbating the difficulties indigenous farmers already face.

CRS Guatemala supports projects that increase agricultural productivity, enabling farmers to diversify their crops and to better access existing markets. Our projects help rehabilitate degraded land; teach better management of natural resources; and provide access to credit that allows farmers to purchase quality seeds, fertilizer and other supplies. The key to the success of these projects is the farmers themselves. CRS relies on a small corps of volunteers to pass on the knowledge they gain—from crop rotation techniques to business management skills—to thousands of farmers in their communities through training sessions and demonstration plots. Along with these projects, CRS continues to pursue the issue of land tenure at the community and national level.

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Health and Nutrition

More than 50 percent of Guatemalan children under the age of 5 suffer from long-term or chronic malnutrition. In some regions of the country, such as the department of Totonicapán, the problem is more severe than that experienced by sub-Saharan African nations such as Ethiopia and Zambia.

Malnutrition is the result of a vicious cycle that passes from one generation to the next. Unhealthy and undernourished mothers give birth to underweight babies. Those babies that survive are often undernourished, and struggle through childhood physically and mentally weaker than well-nourished children. Although poverty is rampant throughout Guatemala, marginalization of the indigenous Maya population makes them more vulnerable to malnutrition than any other group in the country.

By providing a holistic set of services which ultimately benefit some 16,000 families in three of Guatemala's most impoverished departments, CRS and our local partners are helping a new generation of children grow into stronger, more productive adults.

CRS provides food to vulnerable mothers and their children, in combination with prenatal and postnatal education and support. We work in coordination with health centers, which deliver vital health care including immunizations, vitamin A (important to eye health), growth monitoring and case management of malnutrition. CRS Guatemala also works with communities to address the widespread lack of safe water—another cause of malnutrition—by building and repairing water systems and latrines, and by teaching families simple ways of collecting and purifying water. CRS promotes good nutrition through education and by supporting agriculture activities.

Driven by the belief that the best way to improve the health of children is by focusing on mothers before and after pregnancy, CRS works with mothers and other caregivers to improve hygiene, to enhance healthy diets and to increase the use of formal medical services. Critical to the projects’ success are community health promoters. Trained by CRS and local partner staff to detect, treat and refer cases of childhood illness to medical professionals, these local health promoters visit families at home, monitor the health of mothers and children, and provide counseling on a wide range of health care issues.

Education

Guatemala's national literacy rate is 69 percent. However, the ability to read and write among rural and indigenous Guatemalan populations is estimated to be as low as 30 percent. Poor children in rural areas are forced to enter the job market, mostly in small-scale agriculture or domestic work. Many children migrate to other parts of the country to work on coffee or sugarcane fields. Some travel as far as the United States.

CRS works to ensure access to education for those who cannot afford it in rural Guatemala. With financial support from the U.S. Department of Labor, CRS Guatemala is implementing Primero Aprendo (Learn First). Aimed at combating exploitative child labor practices, this program begins at the policy level to raise awareness about the needs of children and the risks they face by leaving school prematurely to find work. Primero Aprendo implements pilot education programs targeting children who are either not attending school or who are at risk of dropping out.

Since 2002, CRS has provided scholarships to students from impoverished families who would otherwise be unable to continue their studies. This initiative began as a measure to help reduce poverty in the department of San Marcos. In coordination with the Diocese of San Marcos Women's Pastorate, the program fosters parents' involvement in their children's educational process. But education can work both ways. Over the years, many scholarship recipients have taken the initiative to teach their own parents and neighbors to read and write with help from the national literacy movement, known as CONALFA. Their efforts and dedication over the past seven years have made it possible for 136 adults, most of them women, to receive their primary school diplomas.

This success has allowed CRS and partners to initiate similar projects in the departments of Santa Rosa, Alta Verapaz and Retalhuleu. In 2007, thanks to continuing support of families in the United States, the CRS scholarship program benefited 685 boys and girls.

HIV and AIDS

About 1 percent of the population in Guatemala is HIV-positive, while about 10,000 people are known to be living with AIDS. CRS Guatemala is working to control the spread of HIV, to reduce the social stigma associated with the disease, and to improve the lives of people living with HIV and AIDS by providing education, care and counseling.

Our partner, Hospicio San Jose, is one of the few facilities in the country to offer integral support to people living with HIV. In addition to providing a safe, loving home to over 50 children—most of them orphans—living with the disease, the Hospicio treats adults with AIDS on an outpatient basis.

Proyecto Vida (Project Life), another key partner in our HIV initiative, provides HIV testing combined with counseling, nutritional education, health services and home visits to mostly rural Guatemalans. As part of the program, community health care workers visit patients’ homes, keeping tabs on their condition and providing basic care and advice.

To control the spread of HIV, and to reduce social stigma, CRS and our partners develop and distribute educational materials and public awareness spots for radio. We are also strengthening the ability of the Church to help by training priests and other members of religious orders to care for people living with HIV, and to develop educational activities that help reduce the transmission of the disease.

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Priority Policies (Peacebuilding, Advocacy and Civil Society)

As part of our overall strategy, CRS incorporates into our programs cross-cutting themes including advocacy, human rights, civil society strengthening, migration and peacebuilding.

Protecting and defending the dignity and human rights of migrants is a priority for CRS. Anti-Trafficking in Persons, a CRS-supported project funded by the U.S. Department of State, raises awareness about trafficking. Government workers, community watch groups, and other civil society organizations are trained to identify trafficking cases and provide assistance to victims and at-risk individuals and families.

CRS also supports the Migrants Assistance Center, the Human Rights Office of the Casa del Migrante in Tecún Umán and the Human Mobility Pastorate. Our objective is to encourage organizations to work together to effectively protect and defend the human rights of all migrants in Guatemala, while meeting the migrants' immediate need for food and a secure place to rest as they travel from their country of origin toward their destination.

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FONDESOL

The Solidarity Development Fund, FONDESOL, was created in June of 2004 as a result of the merger of four credit programs managed by CRS Guatemala. FONDESOL offers credit to poor, rural families. Clients receive lower interest rates and longer-term repayment periods than those offered by traditional banks. FONDESOL currently manages a portfolio of $3.6 million and provides credit to over 12,000 men and women.

Emergency Response

Hurricane Stan struck Guatemala in October 2005, generating heavy and sustained rain that caused flooding and landslides throughout the country. The storm resulted in hundreds of deaths, the displacement of thousands of families and the destruction of infrastructure across half of the country's territory. Moreover, the storm devastated Guatemalan crop production, wiping out the year’s harvest in the country’s most fertile regions.

CRS and local partners responded to this large-scale disaster in two phases. The initial step was to provide for the immediate needs of 4,000 families by distributing food, water, bedding materials, hygiene items and medicines during the first few weeks of the emergency. Next, CRS implemented an integrated emergency response program to alleviate suffering caused by Hurricane Stan in the departments of San Marcos and Santa Rosa. The program included the construction of shelters and the rehabilitation of water systems, as well as support to help the economic recovery of affected families through a distribution of improved seeds, tools and small livestock.

In San Marcos, thanks to significant funding from the U.S. Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), CRS and our local partner, Caritas San Marcos, were able to implement an 18-month program providing short-term shelter to more than 1,000 families. The shelter model was also accepted by participating families who, in many cases, continue to live in shelters years after the disaster.

The same project rehabilitated water systems in 68 affected communities. Safe water and hygiene education are now available to 5,090 families. CRS and our partners also implemented psychosocial activities that addressed mental health needs—so often ignored in post-disaster interventions—for 9,272 individuals.

In Santa Rosa, through funding from the Food for Peace office of USAID, the Global Development Alliance/USAID and Fundación Novella, as well as CRS funds, CRS and local partner Caritas Santa Rosa supported initiatives that distributed food to families with pregnant and nursing women and children up to 5 years of age.

The activities in Santa Rosa included road rehabilitation, soil conservation activities, water system construction and repair, and provision of loans in cash and as farming inputs such as seeds, organic fertilizers and small livestock for livelihood recovery.

This initiative trained 180 community leaders on disaster mitigation techniques and on ways to strengthen a community's ability to respond effectively to an emergency.