How You Can Help

Working on the first school.

The villages’ community service programs, which are required of all young men, provide much of the labor. Our volunteers work hard, but are no match for the villagers. ... More details

Original Latrine in Mactzul

Covenant:

The Sienna Project places no religious, political, financial or instructional prerequisites on villages selected nor do we accept funds from organizations or individuals that do.

Selection Criteria for Projects

Residents of selected villages must be indigenous Mayans. The lives of these people were dramatically affected by the thirty year civil war that ended about a decade ago with many Maya being disappeared during the long war. The villages will either have no school or a proven potential school population that exceeds its present facility.
The Federal Government must allocate sufficient teachers for each new classroom.
The village government or official school authority must hold title to the land on which we build.
The elders must agree to safe, durable and secure standards designated by the Sienna Project and provide local labor though a community service obligation.
Once construction is complete and agreed upon equipment is installed the village becomes responsible for all future maintenance.

The First Two Years

2007 Agua Viva

The village of Agua Viva Guatemala had more teachers allocated by the government than they had classrooms, consequently many children could not attend school for lack of room. In February 2007 eleven Sienna Project Gringo volunteers traveled to Agua Viva, to assist the villagers in a self help project to construct a two classroom school building. The old school is a dirt floor wood structure with no windows, no electric outlets and a single light bulb per classroom. With shovels and pickaxes and hoes the volunteers worked digging holes for footings then leveling the site. They moved all the prefab panels inside the perimeter and because there were no ladders in the village our crew lifted the upper panels into place standing on “scaffolding” made from barrels topped with boards. The children were attending school while we were building at one end of their play ground, so when the students had recess some of us joined in soccer games, dodge ball and tugs of war. There was a great deal of interaction with the village youngsters, drawing, cartooning and map exploration.

It was really heartwarming when we returned in 2008 for a visit during our second construction trip to realize that the K-6 population of the village had almost doubled. We are certainly proud of the Sienna Project’s part in that...More details

2008 Mactzul 2 Sector 1

In February 2008 a different team of Gringo volunteers helped construct another modern earthquake resistant schoolhouse in the mountain village of Mactzul 2 Sector 1.

Unlike last year, the villagers had all the holes dug for the columns when we arrived: some had to be deepened and moved a few inches. Our volunteer crew moved the construction panels and a lot of earth. Also, unlike in Agua Viva, there was a woman on the village governing committee and she worked with us, wearing her traditional clothing like almost all Mayan women do. For this project we provided a new latrine, which has the only three flush toilets in the village. We were replacing a primitive outhouse facility. In this village there is time set aside during school in the morning for the children to wash their faces at a big stone community sink and also brush their teeth. There was again much interaction with the children. This time some of us flew kites with the kids and again played games and worked with the children in the classroom. It really helped that we had three fluent Spanish speakers in our Gringo crew. ...More details

Year 3 '09 Rio Mactzul.

Year 4 '10 Chuguexa.