Common Hope

We visited an NGO called Common Hope on Thursday afternoon. As part of the tour we visited San Pedro, one of the 14 towns. We visited a Common Hope school, a participating family's home, and the clinic and office of Common Hope. The organization just celebrated its 20th anniversary. It was started by a couple from Minnesota. They work with poor children and families in 14 different pueblos and towns surrounding Antigua in the fields of education, health care, and housing. They have certain requirements that classify a family as being "poor". Primary and secondary education in Guatemala is "free", but some families cannot even afford the uniforms and books that are required, so Common Hope pays for those. They also build homes for people and use a sweat-equity form of payment. A typical home would be paid off after about 200 or so hours of work for the organization. Since many of these people do not own the land under them, the homes are constructed to be easily mobile. They also have a clinic where families that are part of the program can be treated for a very small cost. They get their funds from large donations and a child sponsorship program.