Proyecto Itzaes Thanksgiving

Sunday, November 27th, 2011

Ka’ambal U tia’al Ka’ansaj – Aprender para Enseñar – Learning in Order to Teach
Dear Friends of Proyecto Itzaes
Queridos Amigos de Proyecto Itzaes
At the close of this Thanksgiving weekend while reflecting on all of the things I am grateful for, I am writing to thank all of you for your support of Proyecto Itzaes (PI) What kept Proyecto Itzaes programs vital in the past year was all of you—our dedicated, very personal, community of donors who gave generously in another tremendously difficult year. The families of Proyecto Itzaes thank you from their hearts. The hard work and impressive accomplishments in PI villages illustrate how your generosity affects real families; buying essential books and school supplies, building literacy and skills, and conserving cultural and biological diversity. Thank you!
In 2011 PI:
• Served thousands of children and families in poor villages in Yucatán, providing early childhood reading programs that create literacy across generations for Maya families.
• Supported exciting summer enrichment programs including reading, tutoring, computer skills classes, dance, crafts, hands-on science, sustainable gardening, reforestation, ecology, and summer sports programs.
• Provided resources for special needs children and their families.
• Assisted eight university students with scholarships that enabled them to stay in school one of whom, Pastorita, graduated in June!
• Two PI asesores. Javier Garcia Itza who began in PI when he was just six and is now in law school and PI board member, Erica Fernandez, a senior at Stanford University were chosen to participate in the Latin American and Caribbean youth leadership program in Panama with Dr. Jane Goodall. Congratulations, Javi and Erica! And mil gracias to Dr. Jane!
• And much more! Visit our website (and pass on to friends) to read more: http://wp.proyectoitzaesusa.org

Proyecto Itzaes’ continued success depends upon the leadership and tireless work of village families, local leaders and you. Please give generously this year and know that your gift goes directly to those in Yucatán who have dedicated their own time, skills, and very limited economic resources to changing their own communities.

Our Proyecto Itzaes holiday fund raising card will be in your mailbox soon. Please watch for it, enjoy the photos, and please include us in your holiday giving. Your gift truly does matter. If you are on this email list but not receiving our mailing list please contact us with your mailing address to receive our 2011 card.

PI is now on Facebook so add us to your page and help spread the work of PI!

http://en-gb.facebook.com/pages/Proyecto-Itzaes/150081958284

Some highlights:
Proyecto Itzaes programs rely upon our asesores (mentors) who take what they have learned and pass it on to younger students in their own communities. Many of our long-term asesores, now in high school and college, are juggling school, homework, and jobs but still commit precious time each week to teaching and guiding younger students. Mil gracias asesores!

To read more about what your gifts have helped achieve in the rest of Proyecto Itzaes’ villages visit our website and browse the photos and stories. http://wp.proyectoitzaesusa.org
PI is now on Facebook so please add us to your page and spread the word

http://en-gb.facebook.com/pages/Proyecto-Itzaes/150081958284

Posted in News | No Comments »

Congratulations Pastorita!

Wednesday, September 28th, 2011

Proyecto Itzaes is proud to share the news that Pastorita Pech Cutz has graduated from the Autonomous University of Yucatan ( UADY) Lic. en Administración de Tecnologías de Información. Pastorita’s committment to Proyecto Itzaes and mentoring younger students while pursuing her own studies has been outstanding! Felicidades!

Read a letter below from Pastorita:

Quiero agradecer de manera muy personal la oportunidad y el gran apoyo que representó para mí, la beca. Gracias a ese apoyo pude completar ciertas necesidades como estudiante, ya que el hecho de viajar a la ciudad representa un gasto fuerte.
Tuve la oportunidad de estudiar en una facultad que da cierto realce a una formación académica basada en valores que como personas debemos tener. Desde un principio una de mis metas fue concluir mi licenciatura con dedicación y esfuerzo. Ahora que ya lo logré estoy muy contenta por ello.
Ahora puedo encontrar un buen trabajo para poder ayudar en los gastos del hogar y poder mejorar tanto mi calidad de vida como las de mis padres.
En cuanto a mi experiencia acerca del proyecto Itzaes, he aprendido muchas cosas y trabajar con niños es muy entretenido. Afortunadamente los niños de la comunidad pueden tener acceso a cosas que en sus hogares no pueden tener. Este espacio es muy útil para que los niños puedan mejorar su educación.
La experiencia de estudiar y terminar una carrera es algo muy valioso porque representa nuestro futuro y es algo que muchos quisieran tener, es por eso que reitero mi profundo agradecimiento.

Posted in News | No Comments »

Summer 2011 with floods

Wednesday, September 28th, 2011

Dear Friends of Proyecto Itzaes/Queridos Amigos de Proyecto Itzaes
June 30, 2011
Greetings from Yucatán and from Proyecto Itzaes!
I had expected to start this 2011 PI update with news of upcoming summer programs,
literacy achievements and a few highlights of the successes of our amazing students and
families, but the recent tropical storm is our biggest news this morning— the rain and
flooding this week has destroyed the crops of many of our PI families who have lost not
only the cosecha (harvest) but also their investment in seed and many lost shade cloth
structures as well. For those of you who read Spanish you can see a story from today’s
Diario de Yucatán here: http://www.yucatan.com.mx/20110630/seccion-
10/yucatan.htm
Summer in Yucatán is the rainy season— typically with a welcome deluge in the
afternoon followed by the return of sunny skies. Two weeks ago the rains began and
farmers started planting their fields anticipating months of crops. Now though, they will
be struggling to buy more seed and starting over—tremendously difficult for families
who are already living in extreme poverty. Please help them replant if you can!

http://wp.proyectoitzaesusa.org/donate/

The flooding and loss of crops will also effect PI’s current farmers’ market project
funded by the Palo Alto Rotary, Club Rotario Nuevas Generaciones and the Rotary
Foundation. The Ixil farmers’ market project builds on last year’s bio-intensive gardening
efforts and will be modeled after successful US farmers’ markets creating better outlets
and profits for local farmers as well as artisans while strengthening community. PI will
be helping families replant as soon as possible and hopefully by the end of summer
families will have an abundant variety of healthy, organic foods for sale.
In other news Proyecto Itzaes programs are thriving in the villages of Ixil, Too,
Chicxulub Pueblo, Dzemul and Cholul! The new books that so many of you helped us
purchase in the past year have been read thousands of times and after-school programs
continue to inspire children and their families to reach for and achieve their education
dreams. PI classes and programs are community driven with older students teaching and
mentoring younger students while developing their own leadership skills and serving as
vital role models within the villages. Many PI asesores (mentors) are currently studying
at the university as well as working and PI is thrilled to announce that Pastorita Pech
Cutz, who has mentored younger students in PI Ixil for more than six years has
graduated from the university with a degree en infomatica tecnica y administracion.
Be sure to check the Proyecto Itzaes webpage in the next week to read Pastorita’s profile
and to have the chance to write to her and personally extend your congratulations.
Congratulations Pastorita!!
Summer Programs!
In the next few weeks all PI villages will be starting summer enrichment programs that
will provide a multitude of summer activities for hundreds of children. All the more
important this year as families face the challenges of lost crops. PI centers will be
buzzing with tutoring, crafts, music, dance, computer classes, reading marathons,
reforestation projects and much more!
To make this happen we need more books, SO SO much construction paper, glue, paints,
pens, pencils and other craft supplies, sports equipment and several more tablet laptops.
Please help! http://wp.proyectoitzaesusa.org/donate/
For the price of a pizza you could purchase three books that will be read over and over
by hundreds of children.
Stanford University rising senior Erica Fernandez ( above) will be leading an ecology
class for PI families that will include guest speakers visiting the villages for community
environmental forums . Erica will also be working in Ixil and other villages on a
reforestation project that is part of her honors thesis.
GRACIAS!!
Best wishes for a warm and enriching summer to all of you and hoping that you can help
us provide the same for our children and families here! Mil gracias, Dios bo’otik and
thank you all for supporting Proyecto Itzaes.
Abrazos from all of us at Proyecto Itzaes!

http://proyectoitzaesusa.org

Posted in News | No Comments »

Happy 2011!

Sunday, January 2nd, 2011

Happy New Year from Proyecto Itzaes! This past year has been full of achievements with our long term programs as well as several new and very innovative projects.

A few highlights that illustrate what your donations have supported:

• Books that have been read thousands of times ( literally!) by eager young readers in our villages and their extended families. Literacy levels in our villages are at an all time high.
• Our current book drive to provide new titles and replacement books for our village libraries.
• Tutoring and after school learning for all ages.
• Enrichment classes that include dance, art, handcrafts, and sports.
• A super successful health initiative to improve nutrition and to combat type ll diabetes along with a video produced by PI kids and Stanford alum, Tom McFadden.
• Permaculture and bio‐intensive gardening classes (funded by the Rotary Foundation and the Los Altos Rotary club with the assistance of Club Rotario Nuevas Generaciones Merida). Families have expanded their crops and increased yield and are producing organic foods for their families as well as to sell.
• A farmers market project (just starting) funded by theRotary Foundation and the Palo Alto Rotary club with the assistance of Club Rotario Nuevas Generaciones Merida.
• A community based reforestation program in Ixil that includes oral histories of common garden and wild foods historically used by Yucatecos. This effort led by Stanford student and PI board member, Erica Fernandez will produce next summer a book of local plant knowledge that will be written in Maya, Spanish, English and will include the scientific names of the most common plants.

And much more! Mil gracias, dios bo’otik and thank you all for your support!

A few photos because their faces say it all!

Posted in News | Comments Off

One week to raise $1,500 for books

Thursday, November 25th, 2010

Proyecto Itzaes has received a matching grant of $1,500 for books if we can raise that amount in the next week!  Please help spread the word so we can build our libraries. For the price of a large pizza you could buy two books that will be read thousands of times. Donate by clicking on the bottom right of the screen.

Posted in News | No Comments »

Soy Yucateco

Wednesday, October 6th, 2010

Tom McFadden worked intensively with students and the community over the summer to develop awareness and help prevent Type ll diabetes. In addition to a phenomenal health education day for several communities, Tom worked with Proyecto Itzaes students to create a rap song! See it by clicking on the image above.

Posted in News | Comments Off

Noticias from Proyecto Itzaes – August 2010

Wednesday, September 1st, 2010

The past few months for Proyecto Itzaes (PI) have been  incredible and we have a lot of news to share. First, a huge  abrazo  and thank you from the children, families and villages to all of you who have supported our programs and made this possible.  Mil gracias! We are especially grateful to have survived the current economic challenges without having to make too many drastic cuts to essential educational resources for Proyecto Itzaes communities.  We have had to be extremely frugal and careful though—not replacing books, educational materials and other tools for almost two years now and are hopeful that this year we can replenish much needed supplies.  Books are now tattered and held together with tape and glue but have been literally memorized by every child. Our puzzles and other teaching supplies have served the needs of thousands of small hands but also need replacing. We are hopeful that this fall we can bring not just new books but new titles to inspire young minds and we are looking to you for that much needed help. Please see below for other ways you and your friends can help us support PI villages and Maya families. http://wp.proyectoitzaesusa.org/donate/

You can help by donating funds of course, but we can also use your help in delivering books and educational supplies to our villages. So, if you will be visiting the Yucatán peninsula this year, Por Favor consider  bringing  much needed  books and learning tools to our villages. You will be received with open arms and will have the pleasure of seeing first hand how important your donations, books, and supplies are for the children in our villages.

A few highlights of the past six months include our new PI location in the inland village of Chicxulub Pueblo in a restored traditional  nah ( casa). Programs are once again in full swing in Chicxulub Pueblo with families lining up for book exchange and learning activities See photos of the casita and other recent events on the PI Flickr page.

Proyecto Itzaes summer programs were super successful this year with hundreds of children participating in classes that ranged from sports, dance, crafts and gardening to more academic classes that focused on needed summer school tutoring  in math and reading skills as well as computer classes.   PI asesores, many of them now university students who receive help from PI to complete their education rallied in all of our villages to provide exciting summer learning for families.  The asesores were joined in this effort by Erica Fernandez, a Stanford University junior who is also on the PI board of directors, and Tom McFadden, a recent Stanford Alumni who will continue working in PI villages until October.

Some updates on our university students.  Proyecto Itzaes is immensely proud of our  asesores who have excelled through  middle and high school and are now in the university. They have achieved amazing academic success while balancing family, work, and lifetimes of poverty— and they continue to lead PI programs in the evenings and during the summer.  They are thriving in their studies that include majors in law, mathematics, psychology, business, and graphic design. Congratulations to them for their hard work and success and for their loyalty to their communities.

2010 brought good news in the form of two Rotary Foundation grants that are in partnership with the Los Altos, CA Rotary, Palo Alto, CA Rotary and Club Rotario Nuevas Generaciones of  Mérida, Yucatán. Grants were funded to implement classes and training for bio-intensive gardening and permaculture as well as developing a village based farmers’ market.  Proyecto Itzaes International Program Director, Simon Clopton, is teaching the weekly  agricultura classes for participants from several villages and developing with the farmers a plan to take the crops from the garden to the farmer’s market.  These two grants combined, will greatly improve the ability of PI small shareholder farmers to make an adequate living from their crops while improving health in their communities.

Proyecto Itzaes is also grateful to the Foundation for Global Community (FGC) for their grant that has enabled us to continue essential programs. Gracias and Dios bo’otik  to both  Rotary and  FGC! Your support in the past year has made all the difference.

In other news, two PI programs have gone global! by partnering with other youth organizations. In July, with the help of Erica Fernandez, recipient of the Jane Goodall Global Leadership Award in 2009,  Proyecto Itzaes children started their own chapter of  Roots and Shoots, part of the Jane Goodall Institute devoted to empowering youth to take action on global issues. Erica and PI asesores are working on a conservation and reforestation project in PI villages and will be posting news and photos soon.

PI students under the guidance of asesor Javi Garcia Itza are also collaborating with the REAL program and with students from many countries in  a growing effort to collect water quality data around the  world.

Stanford alum and science rapper Tom McFadden has been working all summer with PI communities on health concerns related to diet and type ll diabetes and has organized a symposium (September 10 in Ixil, Yucatán) with community  members, students, and volunteer medical specialists to  educate the greater community about this very serious health problem.  Tom has brought his talents as a science rapper to this amazing effort and will premier the Proyecto Itzaes rap song on September 10th so watch for it on YouTube!

The past year and this amazingly productive summer in Proyecto Itzaes villages is the result of the generosity and unflagging energy of many, many people yet the  reality is that we desperately need your help to continue this  important work in PI villages.  Please help us provide more books for our libraries, the pens, pencils and crayons that literally change a young persons attitude about education, the puzzles that challenge young fingers, the soccer balls that inspire our kids to be healthy and strong and so much more.  There are many ways you can help:

• Your donation of any amount enables us to buy new books and supplies. $10 buys a hardbound book. $100 buys ten books. Early childhood literacy is key and books change lives!
• Your donation of  $1200.00 will enable one of our pioneer PI university students to travel each day to their classes in Merida and achieve their goal of a college education enriching their whole community.
• Your donation of $15,000 funds a new village.
• Please help us mount a social networking fund raising campaign!!  Click on our website or our Facebook page and  spread the word to your friends.  Enough people with modest donations can create enormous change!

Thank you, Mil Gracias y Dios bo’otik

Cindy

Posted in News | Comments Off

Roots & Shoots

Tuesday, August 31st, 2010

Proyecto Itzaes is proud to announce that in July 2010 the students of PI established their own Roots and Shoots chapter! The Roots & Shoots program is about making positive change happen… for our communities, for animals and for the environment. Roots and Shoots is a humanitarian and environmental program of the Jane Goodall Institute for all youth. Roots and Shoots mission is to promote respect and compassion for the world, to promote comprehension and understanding of all cultures and religions of the world, and to inspire each individual to take positive actions towards our planet.

With tens of thousands of young people in almost 100 countries, the Roots & Shoots network connects youth of all ages who share a desire to create a better world. Young people identify problems in their communities and take action.Through service projects, youth-led campaigns and an interactive website, Roots & Shoots members are making a difference across the globe.

Proyecto Itzaes is fostering a new Roots and Shoots group in Ixil, Yucatan—young students and their parents are becoming more conscious every day of the environmental issues that their town faces and are planting new seeds for present and future generations.

Posted in News | Comments Off

A Visit from Professor Rodolfo Dirzo

Friday, January 9th, 2009

Rodolfo Dirzo leading a discussion

Last week, Professor Rodolfo Dirzo (Stanford, UNAM) joined us in the village of Ixil, Yucatán, to talk about ecology and local biodiversity with a group of Proyecto Itzaes students and mentors from four of our villages. The following day, we explored ejido land surrounding Ixil, including the ruins of a small pyramid and participants learned methods for surveying the biodiversity of the vegetation. Plant specimens were gathered for each data point and scanned to add to the digital herbarium being created by Ixil students.

Don Ricardo Cutz provided Maya names and traditional uses for many of the plants we found in the field survey.

This two-day seminar was very much an exchange between Rodolfo, and local people (including elders) contributing traditional ecological knowledge, ecologists from Mérida as well as very young PI students.

Opportunities like this make a huge difference in the lives of PI students and their families and encourage teaching and learning across broad communities. Mil gracias to Rodolfo Dirzo for sharing with Proyecto Itzaes your knowledge, your time and your commitment to education!

Posted in News | Comments Off

Amazing Local Leaders

Friday, January 9th, 2009

Little Pere, Esteban and Peregrina's nine year old daughter, is learning to use the GPS before heading out for the vegetation survey.

Peregrina and her husband Esteban contribute enormous amounts of time and energy to Proyecto Itzaes (PI) in Ixil, Yucatán. In the past two years, working together with other families in Ixil and Simon Clopton, they have developed a vibrant community service based program that started with only 100 books and a used computer. Today, PI Ixil has hundreds of children and their families participating in free programs that include early childhood reading, special education, computer literacy, Maya language and culture, creative writing and local ecology.

Peregrina and Esteban both work long hours to provide for their family, yet they generously work 7 days a week with the community. Esteban has two jobs; he is a cilantro farmer and also works in Merida as a parking lot attendant. Last year, after helping to establish the early childhood reading program, Esteban was inspired to return to school and finish his secondary (middle school) requirements. This fall he will be starting on his high school work. Like many people living in the small villages of Yucatán, Peregrina and Esteban were not able to have many years of formal education as children.

Peregrina, in addition to raising three children and contributing long hours at PI works as a seamstress. As a result of a $350. micro-loan, Peregrina was able to buy a used industrial sewing machine and quit her job doing piece work for a maquiladora. Currently, she is sewing hand made dolls in the style of traditional Mestiza women, with embroidered huipiles and rebozos (traditional dresses and shawls). With the industrial machine, Peregrina now has the capacity to take on large orders and to develop her own business. One of her first large orders will be the production of the BMAB/ Traime un Libro book bags.

Posted in News | Comments Off