Blog 2: Education and Indigenous groups

For my blog, I read two articles that were related to education and indigenous populations. The first, titled “Niños estrenarán [will move into] escuela en el 2011” spoke of how children in the school La Democracia in zone 8 of Xelajú will for the first time have an actual building with rooms to go to school in come the year 2011. The second article, titled “Folclor, costumbrismo y tradiciones” spoke about how students from the Rafael Landívar University researched the details of 21 (of 22) different ethnic regions in the country and put them on display in an exposition.

El primer artículo es bien corto. Dice que “por más de cuatro años, niños de la escuela La Democracia, zona 8 de Xelajú, recibieron clases en galeras [que son alleys], pero a partir del 2011, lo harán en la aulas que fueron construidas recientemente”. Dice que el lugar donde los niños aprenden ahora estaba alquilado por la ayuda de un empresario quetzalteco. Este empresario también está soportando la construcción de la escuela nueva. Además de las siete aulas, sin embargo, necesitará la escuela unas aulas más para acomodar los 340 estudiantes que tiene…por eso, están solicitando ayuda.

I tried to find a bit more on conditions facing schooling, especially in rural areas, and found this video:

http://www.tangle.com/view_video?viewkey=327e50d61c3b9e7d3735

After watching the video and seeing “Help us fill these minds” multiple times, I subconsciously asked the video “with what"? For this reason I decided to take a look at the site I found the video on. I thought it was interesting that it is a Christian site trying to promote education in rural Guatemala, considering that most rural areas in Guatemala are probably inhabited by indigenous populations with their own cultural and religious practices. This sparked a couple of questions along the lines of: What strings come attached to the help that is being offered to indigenous people in poverty? How many regions find support or funding in companies of their own ethnicity to build schools and other basic amenities, such as what was done in the article? What regulations surround the support given to regions by groups with their own ethnic backgrounds?

I’m not trying to stir controversy or anything – I just think these questions are kind of important as they concern the means to providing basic services to so many, and because I naturally compare my thoughts on this phenomena with the facts I have from my own culture. For instance the article just said it was “un empresario quetzalteco” that was supporting the building of the school…From my North American, “developed” point of view, I questioned why the article didn’t go on to talk about the company. You’d think that something so awesome would talk a bit more about this “empresario”, what they do, what made them decide to fund this project... But maybe that’s just my Canadian view with it’s habituation to product placement and subliminal messages talking. Maybe the author simply wanted to focus on the fact that a school is being built for these children. I guess that since I know that in North America, things rarely come free, I am curious to see what the case is in Guatemala.

After reading the article on the exposition of various ethnic groups at la Universidad Rafael Landívar, however, an idea struck me. The article highlighted some of the facts about these various ethnic groups that were discovered by the students, such as how 50 thousand members of the Chuj community in Huehuetenango had to flee to Chiapas and Campeche in México during the armed conflict. Overall, however, the exposition was focused on customs, traditions, and folklore, including food and gastronomy. The article mentioned that visitors made comments which indicated that they would like to see future events be more open, in public places where more people attend, “porque lo que se presenta es una verdadera lección sobre nuestro país y la forma como está conformado por los grupos étnicos”. I thought this was an excellent idea, because then they could ask for donations, which could be put towards helping some of these indigenous groups in matters such as…you guessed it, schooling.

THEN I thought, before I get ahead of myself, I should take a look into this university and see what their mission statement is – pretty much, whether or not it would be an institution that would support rural indigenous groups in providing the services they need, in the way they need them. I did some perusing of their site and found an article titled “La tradición jesuita en Guatemala: Una aproximación histórica”.

http://www.url.edu.gt/PortalURL/Archivos/24/Archivos/Trad_jesuita_en_Guatemala.pdf

I could go on forever, talking about Rafael Landívar etc. etc., but the point is that the university is based on Jesuit principles. I have to admit, being as focused as I have been on the indigenous people of Guatemala, I lost sight of the fact that the country was indeed colonized by Spaniards, and their Christian and Catholic (non-indigenous) ideals inevitably came with. It shouldn’t be surprising then to find that most institutions and businesses will have some kind of platform that would require that strings are attached when supporting projects, especially those in favour of indigenous populations. It just leads me to wonder what kind of issues poor, rural indigenous people in Guatemala (and throughout Latin America and the World) actually face when trying to improve the livelihoods of their people. Look forward to hearing what you guys think in class!

Article 1:

http://www.prensalibre.com/noticias/comunitario/Ninos-estrenaran-escuela_0_371362891.html

Article 2:

http://www.prensalibre.com/noticias/comunitario/Folclor-costumbrismo-tradiciones_0_371962895.html