The Guatemala Literacy Project (GLP) has been called “the gold standard of Rotary international projects”. It is a long-operating, multi-district, multi-club project involving over 800 clubs, 90 Rotary districts, and more than 10 countries. The project has four components: reading, textbooks, computers, and scholarships. It has served more than 278,000 students over 25 years.
Guatemala is the most populous Central American country. The mountainous terrain means that many isolated rural areas exist with high poverty rates and limited economic and educational opportunities. About 50% of the population works in small farming with most or all work done by hand. Spanish is the official language, but over 20 indigenous Mayan communities have their own distinct languages. The government pays for schooling through grade 6, after which families have to pay for schooling. Boys generally get first preference for schooling after 6th grade. Click READ MORE to read more about GLP and our speaker.
The project focuses on Guatemala because of: high poverty rate (>80%), discrimination against indigenous people, lack of resources for rural teaches, and high adult illiteracy (33%).
Facts and figures: participants in the GLP reading program score on average 49% higher than students who have not been helped; textbooks have reached 197 schools, 22,500 students, and have provided over 83,000 books. The Technology program has created 55 computer centers, 13,500 students covering social studies, math, history, and science. The RISE scholarship program has provided 820 in 22 communities with full academic scholarships.
The GLP partners both with a local host Rotary Club and with CoEd, an NGO in the country. CoEd provides logistical help along with translators for Rotarians who not fluent in Spanish.
About the Speaker: Kim Cobb is a past president of the Rotary Club of Rice Lake, the International host club of the 2024-25 Rotary International Global Grant to the GLP, and is the club’s representative on the project’s international board. She first joined Rotary while living in the La Crosse area, and joined the Rice Lake Club in 2016. She’s seen first-hand how this project reduces poverty and brightens the future of indigenous families and children in Guatemala.