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 Guatemala
Update: Computer Lab
July 10, 2001
Steysi Muj, a fourteen-year-old Indigenous
girl, rose from her seat in the crowded auditorium and
approached the microphone. Around her, crammed into
nearly every available space, were the four hundred
red-sweater-clad students of Tecpán school, their
teachers, parents, school officials, and the town mayor.
Nervously, she bent the microphone down to her lips,
unfolded a piece of paper and began to speak:
"It's not enough for women these
days to know how to sew and cook, if we want opportunities,
we have to learn how to use technology. Today we are
being given a dream that we have had for a long time-to
have the chance for a better job and a better life."
Steysi's words echo the feelings
expressed by students, teachers and community leaders
over and over again at the inauguration of the Cooperative
for Education's first computer lab on May 18 at Tecpán
National School in Chimaltenango.
 Funded
by Microsoft, this project is designed to bring vital
marketable skills training to Guatemalan high school
students, which will encourage them to continue their
education and help them find better jobs when they graduate.
There was an amazed silence as members of the crowd--mostly
poor farmers--passed the rows of brand new computers.
"If we want to break the cycle of poverty in Guatemala"
says Jeff B., "we have to give children the education
and training needed to get better jobs when they become
adults. Otherwise the cycle of poverty repeats itself
endlessly."
Twenty new, networked, Internet ready
computers will serve over seven hundred disadvantaged
students and community members each year. Courses are
underway to teach Microsoft Windows, Word, Excel, PowerPoint
and Access. This was the first lab of its type to be
implemented in Guatemala and is designed on a self-sustaining
model that can be replicated anywhere in the world.
Hats off to Howard Lobb, the Cooperative for Education's
newest employee, who did an outstanding job leading
the project team to a successful implementation.
Thanks again for the support you
have given us over the past five years.
--Joe and Jeff Berninger
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