COVID-19 Update

How you can help:

  • To help provide food bags for our families, you can donate to the Meal Support campaign. Since we are unsure of the length of the lockdown at the time, we appreciate all donations. Once the children return to school, any unused funds will be transferred to the Healthy Start campaign, which provides both breakfast and lunch, five days per week for the children.
  • To support the children’s education at the time, you can donate to our At-Home Learning campaign.
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What we are doing:

Meal Support
Through the help of our donors, GRACES has been able to provide food bags to our families every two weeks. We will continue to provide this service to our families as long as it is needed and funds are available. The bags include food, cleaning products and personal hygiene products.

At Home Learning
GRACES’ At-Home Learning campaign provides data packages for both the families and teachers, increasing the efficiency of communications between students and teachers. Every week, the teachers of Escuela Integrada send study guides to the students digitally. Students complete the assignments and stay in constant communications with their teachers throughout the week. Teachers can answer questions and review work through their smartphones. Teachers also record video or audio classes and send them to students. Occasionally, they will have Zoom meetings for essential classes, though the data and bandwidth required for live streaming makes this a less frequent practice. Escuela Integrada reports between an 84-90 percent engagement.

Regulations in Guatemala

  • Guatemala suspended all education until further notice
  • All gatherings are suspended (including churches, etc.)
  • Restaurants are open at a limited capacity
  • No public transportation
  • There is a strict curfew from 9 p.m. to 4 a.m.
  • International borders are temporarily closed
  • Masks are required in all public spaces
  • All parks are closed

How does this affect our families?

Most of the families who we work with are day laborers and are now immediately without work. With no savings, unemployment benefits or other streams of income, they are in an extremely difficult situation. It is also very difficult for them to not have their children in school, where they normally receive meal support in addition to their academic learning. The majority of our families have either an elementary education or no education at all.

The Guatemalan government is tracking the spread of COVID-19. To view the latest statistics, visit the Ministry of Public Health website.