-Christopher Curran

I came to be a part of Project Victoria while I was working as a language school administrator in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala’s second-largest city, during 2003-2004. My job was to coordinate homestays and excursions for people who came from all over the world to study Spanish in Guatemala. Living in Quetzaltenango, however, I became aware of how many Guatemalans don’t have the opportunity to complete basic studies. I got to know three young women—Gloria, Felicia, and Petronila—who had come from rural areas of the Guatemalan jungle to receive a high school education on scholarship. I tutored them in English and gradually got to know them and learn about the recent histories of their communities, which were some of the hardest hit regions during the Guatemalan Civil War.

In September 2004, after returning to the United States, I got emails from Gloria, Petronila, and Felicia letting me know that funding for their scholarships had been cut. They were afraid of having to end their studies and return to communities where the only option would be an early marriage and a future without choices. They asked for help from me, from María de los Angeles Hernández (Marielos), my former co-worker who had also worked with the students, and from Roland Elf, a Swede living in Quetzaltenango who was also interested in contributing to a scholarship effort. Marielos and Roland created the nonprofit organization Asociación Victoria in Quetzaltenango in order continue the girls’ scholarships by administering funds which would be raised through the Project Victoria fund that I established with the Greater Cedar Rapids Community Foundation in Iowa. Marielos also formed a board of directors to oversee the project, and as we prepared for the Guatemalan school year beginning in January, 2005, the members of this board identified many other students living in Quetzaltenango who also had a genuine and immediate need for assistance in order to continue their studies. We decided to expand Project Victoria to offer scholarships covering tuition, school supplies, and participation in extracurricular workshops to 24 students while also fulfilling the original commitment to provide scholarships including room and board to Gloria, Felicia, and Petronila.

Gloria, Felicia, and Petronila have written statements describing their personal experiences and the recent histories of their communities. These are young people who have seen the worst of the ongoing effects of Guatemala’s 36-year Civil War, which ended in 1996 with the signing of Peace Accords between the government and representatives of the URNG, the coalition of guerrilla groups who carried out an armed struggle against the military. During the war, the Guatemalan government used the pretext of a counterinsurgency to wage what is now widely characterized as genocide against the indigenous populations of the country. People in rural communities, many of them speaking Mayan languages and only a little Spanish, were caught in the middle of this conflict. During the early 1980’s, the military pursued a policy of scorched-earth campaigns in rural Guatemala, massacring all inhabitants of more than 400 villages located in regions where there was any slight suspicion of guerrilla activity. Many of the students supported by Project Victoria come from indigenous villages severely affected by the war, and two of them are children of massacre survivors who fled to Mexico as refugees and returned to Guatemala in the mid 1990’s to re-establish their communities.

Marcos López, father of the scholarship students Felicia and Gloria, came with them to Quetzaltenango in January 2004 when they arrived to begin their studies. While there he gave a conference for Spanish students, speaking with clarity and poise about the day in 1983 when soldiers came to his community, rounded up everyone they could find, and systematically slaughtered them. He and his wife were among 35 survivors who escaped and claimed asylum in Mexico. His story, retold by Gloria and Felicia in their statements, was horrific, but his personal strength and endurance were what most affected everyone present in the room during the conference, for which I served as interpreter. He spoke about the legal process his family underwent to gain the right of re-entry to Guatemala, which was made more difficult by the government’s stance that any refugee was considered a collaborator with the guerrillas. The struggle to re-establish a community and survive as farmers is ongoing, and Marcos López has never had time or resources to pursue his own education. But he is filled with pride by the fact that his daughters are studying bilingual education and accounting, and he is hopeful that they will be among the leaders of a new generation of Guatemalans who will bring great potential for progress back to their communities.

All of the scholarship students are in the middle of the long process of growing up, and having access to education is a fundamental and basic necessity to their continuing maturation toward an adulthood with possibilities for professional and personal success. They see the alternative to this success all around them, every day, in the faces of their peers and elders who have never had access to education. For these students, the value of education could not be less abstract or more vitally important, and they see clearly how direct the link is between the effort they put into their studies and the scope of the possibilities ahead of them. This is what drives their academic motivation, and I have met few people as diligent and as determined as these students are, as a group and as individuals who help and encourage one another.

On behalf of the students, I am asking individuals and institutions to consider sponsoring Project Victoria so that the scholarships may continue. This is an opportunity for the most direct kind of charity, with money going to pay for tuition, school materials, extracurricular workshops, and room and board for the three original students. One of our goals is to build a continuing relationship between sponsors and scholarship students, reinforced by periodic reports on their progress. Either monthly donations or one-time contributions of any amount are welcomed and greatly appreciated. Project Victoria has no office or bureaucracy, and the only administrative costs will go to web promotion and workshop preparation, administration fees to the Greater Cedar Rapids Community Foundation (which will accept tax-deductible donations and transfer the funds to Guatemala) and a small salary for the Program Coordinator, Marielos Hernández. She will see directly to the needs of the students and the management of the project, as she describes in her statement. Marielos’s commitment to these students stems from her personal history as a Guatemalan whose education from grade school to university was paid for entirely by scholarships. This life experience makes her ideally suited for the task of coordinating the project. I know her to be skilled and experienced with non-profit administration, and she also possesses the understanding of someone who has been in the same position as the students. She intuits what they most need at different times, whether it be discipline, academic tutoring, personal guidance, or just camaraderie. Marielos has planned a series of workshops that will reinforce what students are learning in school and supplement their formal education with activities geared toward addressing the issues they face as indigenous Guatemalans from rural communities. I have complete confidence in her ability to lead and coordinate Project Victoria with the knowledge and skills necessary to bring about success for each of the students.

The fact that the students who will benefit from Project Victoria are receiving an education at all is a source of great pride for them and an achievement in and of itself. They have a deep and serious desire to realize the completion their education, which, when graduation occurs, will be a true victory for them. It is with this victory in mind that Project Victoria was given its name. Please help us make this victory possible.

Christopher Curran
International Liaison, Project Victoria
christopherjcurran@yahoo.com

 Tax-deductible contributions to Project Victoria may be made to:

Project Victoria Fund
Greater Cedar Rapids Community Foundation
200 1st St. SW
Cedar Rapids IA 52404
319-366-2862