Adopt-a-Village in Guatemala

Adopt-a-Village in Guatemala is a small, grassroots non-profit that works with remote villages in the rugged northwestern highlands region. This is an area of extreme poverty with few public services or other forms of assistance. AAV partners with leaders of these Mayan villages to build a more promising and sustainable future for their children by providing education and other critical support.

Adopt-a-Village in Guatemala provides education opportunities that extend to some 250 villages in the Huehuetenango region. The villages, scattered in the rainforest in the Cuchumatan Mountains, are accessible only by rugged dirt roads or walking paths winding up through the mountains.

Many of the villages have been settled over the last 20 years by Mayan people who were displaced during Guatemala’s 36-year civil war and came to this region in search of affordable land. Families from different Mayan language groups that had until the war lived separately came together to form villages to work toward the common goal of a better future for their children. This is one of the poorest and least-served regions of Guatemala. Employment and education opportunities are extremely limited. Chronic malnutrition is pervasive; some children routinely go a day or more without eating.