Youth Mentors / Books Without Borders!

The Proyecto Itzaes motto Learning in Order to Teach, Aprender Para Enseñar, Ka’ambal Uti’al Kansaj is at the heart of our Youth Mentor program. PI asesores (mentors/tutors) achieve amazing things each day and are the backbone of our reading, computer and early childhood learning programs. In this program, middle and high school students (and now university students as well!) teach what they have learned to younger students in their villages. The asesores learn first hand how to teach, designing their classes and activities and most importantly passing along their own passion for learning.

During spring of 2008 and 2009, students from Menlo School in Menlo Park, California traveled to Yucatan as youth mentors and worked side by side with PI asesores. Menlo School raised funds to provide beautiful books and bookcase libraries from Bring Me A Book for the villages of Cholul and Chicxulub Pueblo and inspired our youngest students; reading aloud to them, creating new stories, folding origami animals, dancing together and much more.

During Summer 2010, Stanford University students Erica Fernandez and Tom McFadden are working with the PI aesores on several programs to benefit our PI Villages and develop leadership skills for local youth.

PI mentors, local and international, spread their reading and learning to others and are essential role models for the younger children.