SERVICE LEARNING WITH OPEN WINDOWS FOUNDATION CONTINUES IN GUATEMALA

Every year, Senior School students participate in a service-learning experience. We value the importance of building relationships with the communities we work with before, during, and long after the students return home.

 

In February 2020, we returned for the fourth time to Open Windows Foundation in San Miguel Dueñas, Guatemala. This foundation fosters self-sufficiency in San Miguel Dueñas by supporting education through programs and scholarships at the learning centre. They also work to improve the living conditions of children and families who face considerable economic challenges by building homes and installing eco-stoves. Balmoral Hall has become very good friends with Open Windows Foundation.

 

This year, in addition to our project of restoring a preschool building and playground for disadvantaged children, we visited the family who live in the house we helped build in 2018. The house we built is a one-room house (12'x12') for a family of five. What made this build so meaningful is that the family worked alongside all of us. So, accompanied by a translator and with gifts for the family, we made the steep climb back to the house. The mother of the family cried when she found out who we were and shared with us that the house has changed their lives. She couldn't believe that after two years we took the time to visit and that we thought they were important enough to remember. Although the students on the trip this year weren't the ones who helped build the house, they were able to see that the work done on service trips by BH students is having such an impact on the people we work with.