The Guatemala blog

Hello everyone,

I am Carlos Toriello and this is where I will be writing about this summer's project in Guatemala. There are two facets to the project:

1- Social capital investment and volunteering with CES in an Exploration Center
2- Nourish International expansion to Guatemala


What we are investing our time and money in is Community Enterprise Solutions' "Centro Explorativo" (check it our at cesolutions.org). Basically it is going to be a center for the 20,000 resident community of AcTxumbal (also known as La Pista) that will house a greenhouse, an after school program, a library and computers with internet access. The greenhouse will generate revenue to offset the expenses and also serve as an agricultural education tool for the community to learn about diverse techniques and crops. The after school program will employ local teachers that will serve children between the ages of 3 and 12 in order to complement the education they are receiving (which is very limited). The library and computers will be the first for the community and will help older students in their school research projects.

The expansion of the Nourish model will leverage the work we are doing with CES in order to inspire local university students to adopt the model. I am working with four close friends from Guatemala in order to find the best way to collaborate with their universities while we are there. Our plan is to have a group of Guatemalan university students visit us on-site while in AcTxumbal so that they see first-hand what Nourish members can do for rural, poverty stricken communities. Then, after we finish the project, the plan is to visit at least 3 universities in Guatemala City and have information sessions where we present our project and discuss the possibility of starting a Nourish chapter in Guatemala. The response I have gotten from my friends in Guatemala has been excellent and I know that once we are there and have the opportunity to share what Nourish means to us, we will not be far from starting a chapter.

Please let me know what you think about this whole thing. I'll be adding more to this blog as time goes by, no worries.

Peace