Child Aid

Child Aid helps poor children by establishing partnerships with grassroots organizations in Latin America working to remove barriers to their children's health and education. These community organizations have identified crucial needs and developed strategies for positive change. But they lack the financial and technical resources and the experience in organization building that Child Aid provides. After helping a local group to develop the skills to sustain itself and grow, Child Aid moves o

Mission

Child Aid helps poor children by establishing partnerships with grassroots organizations in Latin America working to remove barriers to their children's health and education. These community organizations have identified crucial needs and developed strategies for positive change. But they lack the financial and technical resources and the experience in organization building that Child Aid provides. After helping a local group to develop the skills to sustain itself and grow, Child Aid moves on to assist somewhere else. In this way, we're helping to create organizations that have a lasting and measurable impact ... Building brighter futures for poor children.

Programs

Since 1988, Child Aid has worked to eliminate the effects of poverty in Latin America through programs focused on providing education and health care for thousands of children and their families in Mexico and Guatemala. Child Aid's model of international development centers on creating viable, sustainable organizations, which empower and preserve indigenous communities. We achieve this by partnering with local individuals and groups working to better the lives of children through access to education and health care. These people possess the vision and dedication, but lack access to financial and technical resources to fully realize their dream. Child Aid provides cash grants, equipment, supplies, educational materials and staff training with the goal of creating community-owned and operated organizations. Our Partners/Programs Oaxaca, Mexico The Oaxacan Center for the Rehabilitation of Hearing and Speech/Centro Oaxaqueno de Rehabilitacion de Audicion y Lenguaje, A.C. (CORAL) CORAL, A.C. helps impoverished deaf and hard-of-hearing children and adults break out of the lonely world of silence with affordable audiology services, speech therapy, hearing-health education, outreach and advocacy. All CORAL«s programs and services are designed to fully integrate deaf people into their families and communities so that they may lead richer lives. The only organization of its type in Southern Mexico, CORAL assists more than 800 hearing-disabled individuals and their families annually. El Tejar, Guatemala Foundation for the Holistic Development of El Tejar/Fundacion para Desarrollo Integral de El Tejar (FUNDIT) Located in a poor, indigenous village west of Guatemala City, FUNDIT encourages the healthy development of children and their families by providing opportunities for education and self-improvement. FUNDIT's main community programs include a model rural public library serving more than 25,000 people in El Tejar and surrounding villages; a scholarship program supporting 100 primary and secondary students who would otherwise have to work; a daycare providing a Montessori-style education, hot meals and medical care for 100 preschoolers; and a women's group helping to build self-esteem, parenting and vocational skills among participants. Antigua, Guatemala The Guatemala Library Project/Proyecto Bibiliotecas Guatemala (PROBIGUA) More than 50 percent of Guatemalans cannot read beyond the simplest of words. Books are prohibitively expensive in Guatemala and libraries scarce. PROBIGUA works to curb rampant illiteracy by building libraries in some of the poorest communities in Guatemala. In less than a decade, PROBIGUA has built, stocked and supplied more than 26 libraries across the country. For those villages without libraries, PROBIGUA runs the only mobile library in Central America, bringing by bus, the power of reading to the remotest corners of the country. Additionally, PROBIGUA is currently placing computer learning centers in some of its more established libraries.