Heart for the Nations

STUDENTS on the MOVE: Children's Spanish Books

Teachers

Involve your students in a global project.

To set up a guest speaker date Call 610-689-0808

(Available only to schools in 50 mile radius to Pottstown, Pennsylvania.)

Pictured below is John White, Heart for the Nations, Maria Romero Zapata, Spanish teacher and Cynthia Poole-Gibson, Principal.

Pine Forge Academy High School students at Pine Forge translated over 100 books from English to Spanish as a part of project "Children Without Books". For over two months, advanced students in Spanish translated children's books written in English into Spanish as part of their ongoing school curriculum.

In December 2009 John White, Director of HEART for the Nations, gave a presentation to the Spanish students on the work that HEART for the Nations does in Central America. The students were moved about the situation faced by Mayan children.

Pine Forge Academy believes that the students should participate in charity and a living out of their Christian faith. Participating in "CHILDREN without Books" gave the students the opportunity to do just that. HEART for the Nations took four suitcases full of books into Guatemala, a gift for the students out of the hearts and minds of Pine Forge Academy students.

Spanish Translation:

How would you like to take on a Spanish Translation Project that will have major impact on Guatemala?

HEART for the Nations is working with elementary schools in the Lake Atitlan region of Guatemala where the children have no books. We would like to make a significant change for the children by giving them translated books.

Here's one project that we recently completed:

On our most recent trip in February 2010, HEART delivered 100 children's books which were translated from Spanish to English. HEART supplied all the books to be translated. The only thing a classroom needs to do is translate the books. The books are big print books, mostly with pictures. HEART will deliver and pick up the books for your school. READ ABOUT Pine Forge Academy

HEART Ambassadors Jean Schlegel and Joann Rivera traveled with the Whites to Rural Mixta Xetotoj, a small village on Lake Atitlan to deliver the books and school materials. This town was recently rebuilt in 2009 for the Maya indigenous who had lost everything in Hurricane Stan three years ago. The Principal, David Valescos, and the Education Coordinator, Dora Martinez, gave the group a tour of his three classroom school. The school teaches students from Kindergarten to grade five and has about 90 students. Many limitations to the school facility are apparent. The building is made of corrugated metal and each room has one window and door. Each room is approximately 20 ft. square and appointed with desks and one bookshelf of teaching supplies. The teachers have only a few teacher manuals and the students have paper and pencils. The room literally had no books. Also there was no blackboard, no whiteboard, nor anything requiring electricity.

With such meager tools and supplies it is no wonder that the average reading level for adults in Guatemala is grade 4. The majority of the parents of these children speak a local dialect, Quajchecal, and do not have more than a second grade education. Part of the curriculum in this school is to teach the children how to speak Spanish, the national language. There are 22 native Mayan dialects which further complicates the education of this ethnic group; 98% of the Maya live below the poverty line and earn a meager $2 per day.

Students get involved. Talk to your teachers about working on a Spanish Translation Project. You can make a difference in a Mayan child's life. Give them the gift of reading! Call John White 610-689-0808.