Supporting San Antonio Chacayà School in Guatemala

Guatemala is a prime coffee-producing country in Central America with a unique collection of indigenous people, traditions, and culture. The education system in Guatemala has recently been improving, but still needs support, especially with students graduating from primary school to secondary or higher education. In order to assist with this, the ECOM Foundation sought to support schooling in a coffee-producing region. In 2015, the ECOM Foundation and the Exportcafe team in Guatemala constructed the San Antonio Chacayà Satellite School in the Sololá region. The beautiful Lake Atitlán glistens nearby, and students eagerly travel to the Satellite School to learn from Antonio Cali, the teacher who has been with the school from the start.

Antonio works diligently to teach basic computer skills to the younger students and more advanced skills to the older students. The school is one single classroom equipped with desks, computers, and a projector. Schools from the area will bring their students in for a lesson on the computers, guided by Antonio. This includes two primary schools and one high school. Teachers from these schools walk the students over to learn with the computers, whilst Antonio organizes lesson plans based on a curriculum, he constructed at the start of each school year.

When visiting the school, you will see happy students dressed in their beautiful indigenous attire, excited to learn. Antonio speaks the indigenous language to his students, and he curates lesson plans for each of the groups that come to learn. It is thanks to his determination and dedication that the school has survived with the support of ECOM (Antonio and Virginia Aguilar, Director of Sustainability, photographed).

Prior to December 2023, the computers did not have proper headsets for the students to listen to the videos or lessons they were participating in. Mercanta, with the support of Exportcafe’s Virginia Aguilar, successfully sent over 35 headsets for the students. This small gesture was a magical moment for the students of the San Antonio Chacayà Satellite School. They can now delve deeper into education, and learn in a more dynamic way with the ability to listen to their lectures and videos.