Teachers, students learn from Guatemalans

Youngsters try out the new handwashing stations that were built at La Escuela Flavio Rodas in Guatamala. International Day of Handwashing is Oct. 15. Photo By Submitted Photo

Guatemala may be nearly 3,000 miles away, but a collaborative effort is bridging the distance to provide Waukesha students with a better understanding of Guatemalan life, and basic necessities for 900 Guatemalan students.

Making connections

Wanting to provide Waukesha students with an awareness of and appreciation for other cultures, Sara Hudson, then a teacher at Rose Glen Elementary School, and Anita Martin, then a parent and PTO president at Randall Elementary School, sought a partnership with a Guatemalan school. Hudson's friends, Jodi and Steve Hammer of Waukesha, had been missionaries in Guatemala and in 1988 connected Hudson and Martin with La Escuela Flavio Rodas Noriega, a school in Chichicastenango, Guatemala. Out of this connection Partners in Education, or the Rose Glen/Flavio Rodas partnership, began.

"We realized it's just so important for kids to understand that there are other cultures out there that may be very different from ours, but yet are the same," Hudson said. "To have an appreciation for those cultures and a love for humanities" is what it's all about.

The greatest benefit in the partnership for the kids is being able to make a connection between what they learn in school then to say they have met someone from Central America.

"It gives a world connection for the kids and for them to see that we're part of a world community," said Cathy Hernandez, semi-retired library/media coordinator (K-6) for the School District of Waukesha .

While students at Randall no longer participate in the collaboration, students at Rose Glen and La Escuela Flavio Rodas Noriega continue to send letters, school projects and crafts to each other. Because the mail service is unreliable, packages are sent using trusted medical teams, engineers, and others who make regular trips to Guatemala. Rose Glen students often send a little something for each of La Escuela Flavio Rodas Noriega's 900 students.

Foundations for education

During the partnership's 24 years, many groups and people from Waukesha and surrounding areas have come together to provide better learning and living conditions for Guatemalans. Every four years or so, a group from Waukesha visits Guatemala or vice versa.

In 1991, Partners in Education took the first group of 27 teachers, friends, and family to Chichicastenango to visit La Escuela Flavio Rodas Noriega. Working with the Guatemalan residents, they were able to paint the school and build a concrete playground.

Projects since then have been numerous but revolve around improving La Escuela Flavio Rodas Noriega. In 1995, Partners in Education built bathrooms for the school, which had only one bathroom for its 900 students. The group has also built two hand washing stations for the school which previously had no sink.

Partners in Education helped renovate a room into a library which was named after Sara Hudson-La Biblioteca Escolar de Sara Hudson. Libraries are rare in Guatemalan schools, and it had been a dream of La Escuela Flavio Rodas Noriega's to have a library of their own since seeing the one at Rose Glen in 1994. Other initiatives have brought thousands of books plus tables and chairs to fill the new library at La Escuela Flavio Rodas Noriega.

"We don't just want to do more of these capital projects; we want them to have more teaching materials and books for the kids," Hernandez said.

Help is on the way

To finance these projects, Partners in Education purchases small items that are sold in the Chichicastenango market, bring them back, and then sell them at Rose Glen during the holidays and during the school's annual chicken barbecue.

"The village benefits from our buying this stuff from the market, but the school (La Escuela Flavio Rodas Noriega) benefits because the money goes back into a project (to improve their school)," said Bud Hudson, Sara's husband and a professor emeritus of chemistry at Carroll University. In turn, "the families at Rose Glen have been amazing. They love the trinkets we bring back."

"Teachers from Rose Glen have shared with teachers from Flavio Rodas ways of teaching reading, writing, and math, and have taught them dice and card games to play with their students. During their most recent visit to the United States this past December, five teachers from Flavio Rodas toured the Vernon Presbyterian Child Care Center in Big Bend to learn more about teaching methods in the U.S.

La Escuela Flavio Rodas Noriega has made requests for work to be done in the future. The next project they're seeking help funding is repairing a leaky roof.

"If we can help them, we do," Sara Hudson explained.

As a result of their work, others from Waukesha and Wisconsin have joined Partners in Education in helping Guatemalans. Youth from Southminster Presbyterian Church travel to Guatemala as part of their high school mission trip. One former Rose Glen teacher even adopted a daughter from Guatemala.

"It's been a wonderfully insightful, rewarding experience for all involved," Bud Hudson said.

For more information about the partnership, contact the Hudsons at (262) 673-9725.