El Nahual community center offers the following programs to the community:
- An after-school program for children (Manos de Colores) teaching English, art, Spanish,and a variety of other subjects. Children also receive help with their homework from their regular school.
- An adult school in primary education, which runs on Saturdays to enable adults to continue working while receiving classes.
- An adult school in secondary education.
- A school for youth of school age in secondary education.
- Additional courses for adults and youth in English, computation, and other areas.
- English language lessons for children at under-funded public schools in the area.
The role of volunteers in these projects is crucial. Volunteers are needed to give classes, help with publicity and event planning, and fairly soon we will need volunteers to help construct a new section of the school.
Volunteers are currently needed to:
- Give classes in English, art, music, theatre, health, moral, or sports to school aged children in our Manos de Colores program Monday – Friday. Volunteers are responsible for planning and giving the class, with the support of our Coordinators and other volunteers.
- Help our Guatemalan teacher give classes to school aged children Monday – Friday. Volunteers will help children with their homework, and help keep them on track with the tasks that the Guatemalan teacher assigns.
- Give English classes in the evenings and on weekends to fulfill the English curriculum requirement to adults in our Básico and Bachillerato programs. Volunteers are responsible for planning and teaching classes in 1-hour blocks. As well teachers are needed to give English classes to students not in these programs but are interested in taking courses.
- Teach English at local or rural schools in order to satisfy the curriculum requirement in public schools that may not be able to afford to hire a specific, knowledgeable English teacher. Class sizes are typically 35-50 and between the grades of 3 and 9. Volunteers are responsible for planning and teaching classes in the schools, usually with the help of a partner.
- Create and distribute publicity to attract more Spanish students and attract more volunteers, and help update and optimize our social media channels in order to gain more awareness about our school and mission.
- Kickstart fundraising events and campaigns and solicit donations or grants in order to keep the school running and support current and future projects.
- We are currently finalizing plans to add an addition to the school. We are planning to buy a 200-square-metre piece of property adjacent to the school, on which we will build an additional two classrooms and a play area for the children (as they are currently playing in the street), all within a concrete wall to ensure security. Volunteers will be needed to help build the wall, classrooms, and the play area.
- We regret to inform that we are no longer working with our organic garden. We thank interested volunteers but ask that they collaborate with us in another way!
- Motivated long-term volunteers are also encouraged to brainstorm additional projects and courses to offer! We are open-minded to providing additional courses to the community such as bike repair, guitar, etc. There are bikes and guitars on-site that are currently not being used, so motivated volunteers are welcome to offer courses in these (and other!) subjects.
