Barbara Hatch and a team effort by Women With Purpose Travel Group - 2024

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From Barbara:

In June 2023, I travelled to Guatemala with our grandson Alex and his family. This was one of the most incredible and rewarding trips I have ever taken. We travelled with other adoptive families with the humanitarian group “Our Guatemala: Travel with Purpose.” This group partners in projects and programs that highlight the skills of Guatemalan youth and their communities with a desire to make a difference in the lives of children at risk in Guatemala.

Two of the organizations we were involved with were the Backyard School in San Bartolome where we participated in the Bunkbed Project and OSDIFGUA in Santiago Atitlán.

I was so impressed with the beauty of the country, its people, and the services we could provide to children and families that I needed to go back. I spent another 10 days in Guatemala in January 2024 with the group “Women with Purpose”. Prior to leaving for this second trip, Ernie, a friend of my husband’s, said that he could get us a retired school bus to be used for transportation for any group who needed it.

I immediately thought of OSDIFGUA. (Social Organization for the Integral Development of Guatemalan Families) Once in Guatemala, the familiar yellow paint would be replaced by unique and colorful designs and OSDIFGUA, would finally have its own "camioneta," or "chicken bus." I mentioned this to Jose Miguel Yllescas Juarez and his partner Maritza Ovalle, the directors of OSDIFGUA-NGO, and they couldn’t say yes and thank you fast enough. Thus, the work of securing this bus and getting it sent to Guatemala began.

OSDIFQUA provides much-needed work in the area of mental health and social development for the children and families of the Lake Atitlán area of Guatemala. They also host sports programs for at-risk youth, providing an opportunity for young people to experience the teamwork and social benefits of participating in sports. A mobile library has been created which provides books to help increase literacy in the area. Another of their projects helps empower women economically through supporting the use of ancestral weaving to make beautiful items to sell. This allows them to earn money through the sale of their beautiful crafts.

We are asking your help in providing OSDIFGUA with a bus that will be used for several purposes including

to transport children from school to after school sports activities,
to transport books to schools from the mobile library,
to transport the local community members to different places within the community to learn more about OSDIFQUA and their projects, and
to transport travel groups such as Our Guatemala: Travel with Purpose to different locations where they can learn about the community, culture and projects.

Of course, providing a bus for this worthy organization costs money, and we could use all the help we can get. If you can, please help. For $15,000, we can purchase the bus and have it driven to Guatemala.

Your donation to this project will help make a dream a reality.

Chicken Bus Project - OSDIFGUA

By Legacy Partners Guatemala

Chicken Bus Project - OSDIFGUA

By Barbara Hatch

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