Sponsor a Student
at the Ak Tenamit “Small Business Training” high school

Change a life – and help change the world!

According to the World Bank, 75% of the Indigenous people of Guatemala live in poverty and their children receive on average only two years of schooling. The villages are without roads, electricity and running water. Houses are one room, dirt floor buildings with open fire cooking.

Students at the Fr. Tom Moran Education Center are the first in their families to study beyond elementary school (6th grade) and are the best hope for their families and communities to climb out of poverty. In addition to basic high school curriculum, the Moran Center helps them become self-reliant, productive members of their society by giving them 3000 hours (75 weeks) of practical, hands-on vocational training through entrepreneurial apprenticeships in a variety of tourism and community development venues.

The emphasis is on “doing” – managing a small business or community agency. Venues include restaurants and hotels, handicraft shops, social service offices, clinics and NGO’s. The program also promotes equality and education of girls who will become better mothers of healthier families, better providers and inspiration to younger indigenous girls who now commonly leave school after 6th grade and marry at an early age.

The program develops a student’s capacity for critical analysis, identification of problem-solving strategies, feasibility studies, business plans and other entrepreneurial skills needed to successfully start and run small businesses.

Our graduates will form the teaching cadre for replicating the Moran Center program in other parts of Guatemala. This educational program is changing our world and possibly others as it is replicated. Over 500 6th grade graduates of village schools applied for admission to our 7th grade last November. We were able to accept only 100 for reasons of space and budget. Our 500 boarding students come from 100 villages – some as far away as an 8-hour bus ride.

A Moran entrepreneurial apprenticeship education is unique:

It motivates and empowers our students to help their communities

It promotes responsibility and good citizenship by making all students work for their education – building and maintaining their school, growing their food and helping to manage the school through a process of consensus. And by donating one year of service to Ak Tenamit upon graduation.

It promotes equality and education for girls in an area and culture where this has been largely absent.

An annual student sponsorship costs just $360 which helps cover the cost of teacher salaries, room and board, tuition and school supplies, boat transportation and health care. You’ll receive a photo of your student yearly, biographical information and two newsletters per year keeping you informed about your student’s activities and progress at the school.

For less than $1 per day you can have an enormous impact on a young persons’ life and the well being of their rural community.

Please click here to go to our secure "Sponsor A Student " donation form.