My name is Paulino Mixteco Paché and I'm 18 years old.
My father is a farmer, a coffee farmer.
My mother sells avocado, banana and banana.
We are located in the municipality of San Juan Alotenango.
The economy that keeps this population is usually agriculture,
the coffee harvest, corn and other crops.
We have lived in Guatemala for the last 50 years,
a civil war with more than 300,000 dead and missing people.
Guatemala has lived in the last 50 years,
a civil war with more than 300,000 dead and missing people.
Guatemala has lived in the last 50 years,
a civil war with more than 300 families,
Guatemala has lived in the last 50 years,
an agreement of peace that has been ignored,
to had racial discrimination, ethnic discrimination,
exclusion of indigenous combs,
exclusion of women, corrupt governments.
Guatemala is a platform,
a bridge for the southern-american immigrants
to fulfill the American dream, it is the country of the Central American Economic Platform.
Guatemala is many things, it has also wanted to be a lot and they have not allowed us to be.
Guatemala is a country that has many psychosocial problems such as sexual abuse,
family violence, machismo, exploitation of children,
which the government really does not solve any of these problems.
Therefore, education in Guatemala is a great necessity,
but also the government has not done anything to create opportunities that benefit children.
Hello, good morning, good morning.
My name is Lourdes Inés González Montroy,
but here in Casacito everyone knows me as Sisi,
in my title, within Casacitos, being director of the program of Becas.
For example, in our bathroom at the university, what do you want to study?
Well, I would like to be an auditor.
Well, I met Paulino in the end of 2009,
and since the first time he knocked on the door,
he saw enthusiasm, positivism, the hunger to move forward.
Not only that, I want to study and be someone different,
not the desire to create individual, family and social changes.
The economic situation in this case is very complicated.
Also the economic conditions were really precarious,
and we realized that he needed the help to continue studying,
because if he had not received this help,
he would definitely not have studied last year.
Casacito, well, thank God, really,
and it gives me this benefit, you know?
So, I was able to think that I have to keep making more and more money.
Guatemala needs professional people,
who are productive to carry out the development of our country,
who need it so much.
Well, Paulino, thank you very much.
Thank you.
I will not forget you.
Take care.
Thank you very much.
My name is Pariz Ortiz,
and I'm the general coordinator for Casacito.
San Mía de Esperanza de Amor is one of our partner projects,
and we support them in a variety of ways,
including supporting them with teacher salaries,
funds for their nutrition program,
and also we provide them with administration coaching,
where we work directly with the director
and the administrator of the Learning Center
to help them learn how to better manage the association,
the project, and also to connect them
with different fundraising sources.
Hello, gentlemen. How are you?
My name is...
Welcome.
My name is Blanca Aliminia Flores Cortés.
I'm a pedagogical and science educator.
I'm a little worried lately.
I don't know if you've noticed how everything is going up.
Yes.
Look at the tomato that was found, for example,
at 90, 100 in the box,
it's over 140.
But I'm not complaining,
saying that I can't make it.
Yes, I can.
Yes, I can.
But yes, the situation is very difficult.
Seminar Esperanza y Amor is in a village
in Antigua Guatemala,
which is called San Mateo-Mirpas Altas,
at 25 Minutos.
It's a poor community.
The relationship with the little house organization
and Seminar Esperanza y Amor
is very close to each other.
We're holding hands.
They help me with the kids' meals,
with food.
Ma'am, here's your cheque for the food program.
I'm here to deliver it to you.
When the kid arrives from school,
he doesn't find food.
So they have to see what they're going to eat.
And the kids stay with us.
And we send them their food.
The moms can go to work calmly.
There are plates served for those who want to serve again.
And we're going to eat as they send.
And we're going to eat as they send.
And we're going to eat as they send.
My name is Juan Pablo Romero Fuentes,
and I'm the director and founder of El Proyecto Los Patojos.
More than 60% of the inhabitants of this town
are children and young people.
They're between 9 and 25 years old.
It's a town that has more churches than schools,
more churches than clinics.
It's a town that is poorly organized in terms of the streets,
there's no public education,
it's very contaminated,
there's no culture or environmental education.
We have many families that have family disintegration,
family violence, drug use, alcoholism.
Guatemala doesn't have a social dialogue.
There's no communication to confront an idea.
What exists makes an idea a violent response,
a response in matter,
but it's not dialogue, it's not agreements,
it's not respect for the facts.
So we believe that this program does that
through dynamic games,
faith circles, music, art, theater, breakdance,
urban cultures, hip hop, poetry.
We have a volunteer from Casasito,
now we have a Israeli colleague
who's working in the musical area
and reinforcing many things at a young level
in El Proyecto Dos Patojos.
This is Yair, I'm from Israel
and I'm doing volunteer for Casasito
in an organization called Los Patojos in Jocotinango.
When I arrived here,
I didn't know exactly what I'm going to do.
I heard of Los Patojos in Jocotinango,
I heard good stuff about this project
and about the person who runs it.
I think for the children,
Los Patojos is important.
First of all, in the level of self-development,
there's a person and in the future
could be also like a leader of your community
or could be a responsible citizen.
And in that way, it's get where it's also important
for the community.
The goal is not that you get out of this bad situation,
the goal is that you make this situation better.
Now in Los Patojos, we are preparing for the music festival
and I helped the teenager to prepare their show
and we're working on the music that they wrote or they created.
Very good.
Well done.
Perfect.
Perfect.
My name is Paulo Montero,
I come from Brazil
and here in Casacitos, I work as the coordinator of festivals
and also the coordinator of the projects
that are in the rural areas more remote.
So, the music festival is the third time we're doing it.
We did it two years ago and it's the third time.
We're going to have six invited associations
just to remind everyone that the intention of this festival
is that through a festival,
associations feel unmotivated
to put in their programs activities related to music.
So, on the day of the festival,
it's also another objective
that the children get there and they can express themselves
by taking their high esteem.
So, we don't focus much on the quality of the show,
but mainly on the promotion of the music
in the participating associations
and a day of joy and high esteem for the children to participate.
It's going to be there.
The idea of organizing festivals started three years ago
because we at Casacitos believe that activities like music, art and sport
are very important to complement the education of the children.
I wish you all the best on the day of the festival
and that we get a lot of energy
because not only the children, but also the other volunteers
we have to share this energy.
That's right.
Let's put our hands together here.
The three children are very strong, let's go up.
One, two, three.
I help my father in the education
and I thank him.
Thank you very much.
You are always helping me.
Maybe sometimes the economic situation
doesn't limit me,
but I think that in this moment
if you have a guide for me,
that guide is enough for me
to be able to work and help.
That's why we all help each other.
I would also like to improve
for you to have a study
so that everyone
can help you at the same time
to give your opinion in a sense.
Without the study right now
there is no work
and to help you forward
study is easy.
And especially for me
it is a fan for me
that you are doing this.
That's right. Bye!
Preparation for the music festival,
the song and the art of Casacito.
The patocos are going to have
several interventions.
They are going to have an interpretation
of a song that they wrote,
of Hip Hop.
Rimas that thought about all that.
It's very beautiful.
It's not defined,
but we are not interested in being defined.
What we want is that the message is transmitted.
Art for me is liberation.
It's not oppression.
Art is something that makes you
vibrate your heart.
You have a stage to do what makes you happy.
What we have thought,
to make the festival,
we have the presentation of the story.
Where they,
a girl tells it,
tells it,
takes it as a base.
How nature is being lost,
that it is so important
and so beautiful in Guatemala.
And they present fear
with the song Viva la Gente.
Where it is only
it works with a battery
and they are born
of wood
and boats.
And they are only using
their hands
and their voices.
The purpose of my hope for love
to participate
in the festival that is organizing
Casacito is
that the boy feels motivated.
That the boy
gives him the value
that maybe in this community
that the boy goes and participates
and shares all his stress
and all what they have
and that they express it
in front of a public who is applauding them.
And that gives them the value of their self-esteem.
Because
the boy is the one who is giving his own life.
And that gives them the value
that maybe in the community
that the boy goes and participates
in the festival that is organizing
My precious people are in my prayer
I carry them in my mind, I carry them in my heart
My precious people are in my prayer
My precious people are in my prayer
I carry them in my mind, I carry them in my heart
I carry them in my mind, I carry them in my heart
My precious people are in my prayer
I carry them in my heart
I carry them in my heart
I carry them in my heart
My name is Alice and I'm the founder and the director of Gazacito Association.
Gazacito is a non-profit association and we hope that we can help the people in difficult situations to increase the educational opportunities.
Gazacito is a waste of our association and Cito actually means small engine but have a lot of power.
I hope that my association will have the same character, small but powerful. I hope the country can be self sustainable and people who live in Guatemala will be part of their own country, part of whatever is going on in Guatemala.
And the government will support their people and not only thinking about themselves.
My hope for the children of Guatemala is that they can get an education so that they can be in control and in power to make decisions for themselves.
So they can live the life that they choose to live and that nobody else determines for them.
We hope to work with Gazacito in different ways, supporting traditional education through our program of Becas,
as well as complementary education through festivals that work on music, art and sports,
opportunity for children here in Guatemala a complete training where they know all their rights and grow with these rights in their hands,
so that they grow responsible adults and aware of their rights.
My hope for the children is that they have a better way of life.
My hope for the children is that they find their way. Every one of them will learn about himself, learn about his community
and find the things that he likes to do and believe that he can do whatever he dreams of.
I have a lot of hope that all the young people who attend our program of Becas will first finish their studies
to have a profession and to be able to create themselves and create opportunities for work.
By having this, they will find different alternatives to break cycles of violence, of an alphabetism
and in that way to find a personal development.
Our hope as a project is that the children and the young people can be taken into account, at least with their voices,
that they are respected and that they are part of the construction of this society,
because the fact that you are a child does not mean that you do not have something important to say
and deliver to the society responsible citizens, parents of loving, responsible families, creative leaders,
responsible human beings who defend their right to be happy.
No one has the right to take away the joy and that is what my hope is to promote,
even if we are destroyed, even if we do not have a tortilla, we have to keep the emotion
and the hope that what we are doing here can confront the system of society with responsible and different people.
music
music
