“What I have could be a message or just some words from my heart.
My respect to the ones making changes, for other lives they’ll give their own.
Well our world it keeps spinning, round and round it goes, human nature keeps spreading its disease.
And our children keep growing up with what they know from what we teach and what they see.
And it’s only a question of the time we have, and the lives that our children will lead.
They can only keep growing up with what they know from what we teach and what they see.”
Better People – Xavier Rudd
By all accounts Guatemala is a beautiful place – beautiful people, beautiful scenery, beautiful culture – a beautiful place. But unfortunately there is an opposing image, possibly the representation that most people have when considering Guatemala. For me this was the image that persuaded me to travel here.
Guatemala is desperately poor. 43% of all children under five are considered chronically malnourished. More than half the population live below the national poverty line and 15% live in extreme poverty, in indigenous groups the figures are significantly worse. It is hard to comprehend these statistics until you see the situation first hand. Families of 10 or more living in single room, dirt floor, corrugated tin shanties are not uncommon even in the more affluent areas of the country.
Perhaps one of the most alarming statistics is the age structure of the population of Guatemala. The median age in Guatemala is 20 years across males and females. Compared to New Zealand (37 years), Australia (37.7 years) or Sweden (41.7 years) there is huge disparity. In 1950, Guatemala had a population of 2.9 million people. That figure has now quintupled to an estimated 14.5 million. Led by an extremely high fertility rate (4.1 – one of the highest in Latin America), the current population level is expected to again double in the next 30 years. This is worrying for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the resource base of Guatemala. As the population grows at such an alarming rate there is tremendous pressure on the already fragile infrastructure and resources available to Guatemalan nationals to establish their life in this country.
Thankfully, Guatemala is rich in volunteer participation. Guatemala’s proximity to the United States of America (particularly) and the stereotypical image that is Guatemala both contribute to such a high availability of volunteers. For me, Guatemala provided the perfect opportunity to undertake a personal mission to create change through volunteering.
There are a huge number of organisations that have a core focus of changing futures here. At its most simple level, volunteering in Guatemala is about being that someone to be there, that someone to care, that someone to give love; but most of all, that someone to give belief. These people need belief – belief in themselves. Belief that they can break the cycle of poverty, belief that their future is more than shining shoes in a park or sifting through garbage at the dump looking for recyclables, belief that prostitution starting at the age of 12, or sadly younger, is their only future.
There are ups and downs in this world, and sadly, Guatemala – for all its beauty, has a disproportionate level of downs. But there is hope. Maybe you want to volunteer, maybe you want to donate money or maybe you want to just be aware. For whatever reason, I would encourage anyone to follow in the footsteps of many others before them and be part of the change, because for me, I now understand what it is to be a better person. That better person isn’t me, it’s the person that was given love and care and now believes in themselves and their future. One by one we CAN make change; we CAN build a country with a prosperous future – a country of better people.
If you are interested in more information on ways you can make change, check out these links:
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