The Nicolás Christian School students provided an outstanding B’a’n Etule (Ixil forWelcome/Bienvenidos) ceremony for the Nicolás Fund For Education July 2022 mission trip members. Students shared an unprecedented display of beautiful Mayan traditional clothing from various parts of the Quiché Department and different Mayan people groups in Guatemala. The precious clothing was borrowed from the mothers and relatives of our students for this very special presentation. In the video, students shared traditional clothing from these areas: Elisheva – Cotzal (home to the Ixil Mayan community) Britalin – Nebaj (home to the Ixil Mayan community) Ana – Sacapulus (home to the Sakapultek and K’iche’ Mayan communities) Evelin – Quiché (home to the K’iche’ Mayan community) Madelin – Zacualpa (home to the K’iche’ Mayan community) Yesica – Chichicastenango (home to the K’iche’ Mayan community) Delia – Totonicapón (located in the Totonicapón Department, home to the K’iche’ Mayan community. 37 miles from Nebaj) Teresa -Santa María Chiquimulá (located in the Totonicapón Department, home to the K’iche’ community, 55 miles from Nebaj) Cristel – Xela (Quetzaltenango), home to the K’iche’ community, 46 miles from Nebaj. Brenda – Santiago Atitlán (close to Sololá on Lake Atitlan, 53 miles from Nebaj. Tzutujile Mayan community) Hilda – Cobán (located in the Alta Verapaz Department, 52 miles from Nebaj, home to the Q’eqchi’ Mayan community) We were honored to experience this presentation that accompanied by Mayan dance. It waswonderful to see our students celebrating and sharing their Mayan culture! Take a virtual trip with the July 2022 mission team and browse through our trip photo album. Would you like to experience first-hand the colorful Mayan culture, meet our students, families and faculty, and see the new school being …
Student Spotlight: Meet Yesedi Ines
Meet Yesdi Ines a student at Nicolás Christian School in Guatemala. Hear how Nicolás Fund For Education is helping her to reach her dreams of becoming a nurse. You can transform a child’s life by supporting Nicolás Fund For Education and empowering Mayan youth to break the generational cycle of poverty in the Ixil region of Guatemala through Christ-centered education.
Interested in traveling to Guatemala to see student graduations?
An NFE mission team is heading to Guatemala from November 10-18, 2022. It is a joy to attend all the graduation ceremonies (preschool, junior and senior high)! On day one, we help with the dress rehearsal for the graduation ceremony. The excitement in the air is palpable! The next day the missions team attends the graduation and celebrates with students and their proud families. For another 2-3 days, the team then visits the Ixil or Quiche villages where our students live. Following that, we will relax in Antigua, an old Spanish colonial city, for another 2-3 days. To register for this trip, please visit our missions trip page and click on the November trip. A $100 non-refundable deposit can be paid on the same page if you click on the green box on the top of the mission trip page that says, “Click Here to Donate to Mission Trips”.
We Met Our Mid-Year Goal!
We are celebrating! We raised a total of $191,000 at our 10th anniversary Fulfilling a Dream event! Because of your generous giving, we are thrilled to announce that we met our mid-year goal for the 2023 Nicolás Christian School (NCS) Operating Budget. We are so grateful to those who acted as Fulfilling a Dream Ambassadors and invited people to watch our event. We were especially pleased to have a number of first-time donors! You are truly our partners in offering high-quality Education to Ixil-region students to help them overcome poverty. Nicolás Fund For Education will gratefully steward the funds that you have entrusted to us. These funds will be contributing to more success stories for students like the four you heard from at our Fulfilling a Dream event. Here’s the video presentation if you missed it or want to share the event with someone new to Nicolás Fund for education. Please consider making a gift to help us raise the remaining funds needed for our 2023 operating budget. We still need to raise $186,000 before November 1st to allow every student to return to Nicolás Christian School next year and to avoid reducing our tutoring programs. Together we’re changing the future of generations to the glory of God!
Join us for Ice Cream on August 13th!
Nicolás Fund For Education will be hosting an ice cream social on August 13th from 2-4:00 pm at Mercerdale Park. We are eager to greet you all in person and catch up with each other after being apart for so long during the pandemic. This event will be outdoors, and masks are encouraged but optional. This is intended to be a fun social event to express our gratitude for you all and is not a fundraiser. Let’s pray for good weather! The address for Mercerdale Park is 3009 77th Ave SE, Mercer Island, WA. You can park in the Evergreen Covenant Church parking lot, street parking, or in adjacent parking lots where businesses are closed. We want to ensure that we can have enough ice cream on hand! Please indicate how many there will be in your party. We hope to see you there!
Nicolás Fund for Education Establishes Village Libraries During Pandemic-Related School Closures
For the most part, Guatemalan schools have been closed since March 14, 2020, because of the coronavirus pandemic. Finding strategies to help elementary, middle, and high students keep learning despite school closures is crucial. Nicolás Fund for Education partnered with nine Ixil region villages to establish village lending libraries between 2020 to 2021. NFE plans to open five more village libraries in 2022. These libraries have effectively promoted reading in a culture that typically doesn’t read for pleasure. Nicolás Fund for Education’s (NFE) Academic Chair Bill Safström, M.Ed. spearheaded this program with valuable assistance from NFE volunteer Shirley Kinsey. Mr. Safström is a retired high school principal who is currently working at Seattle Pacific University in teacher education. Ms. Kinsey is a retired middle school reading specialist who helped select appropriate books and apply for grants. NFE volunteer Conchita Chinchilla, a Guatemalan, helped find books in Spanish that were available at a Guatemalan book store. NFE’s Education Committee, populated by education specialists from the Puget Sound region and chaired by Mr. Safström, also assisted in book selection and promotion of a book drive to fill the libraries. Mr. Safström assisted in the creation of the Book Donation page on NFE’s website, where donors can select Spanish language books to donate. A village must donate the space for the library and commit to the ongoing maintenance of the building before establishing a library with help from NFE. The village Education Committee must select and support a village librarian to manage the library. NFE provides a minimum of 200 books to open a library, and we hope to keep adding new books to each library regularly. NFE is seeking book donations at …
Nicolás Christian School Receives License for Vocational Training Courses
Nicolás Fund for Education has a strategic plan to offer vocational technical training as an extracurricular activity! Nicolás Christian School just received approval to begin offering those courses through a Guatemalan Ministry of Education program called CEMUCAF. The program provides and certifies technical occupational training to create a “semi-skilled workforce.” This program benefits local small and medium-sized employers by training graduates in alignment with local labor market needs. CEMUCAF works closely with municipal mayors and coordinates strategic alliances and partnerships with national and international organizations offering employment programs and projects. After finishing the program, the student receives a certificate documenting they acquired knowledge, abilities, and skills in that field. Nicolás Christian School will add programs slowly. NCS will likely offer carpentry as a course. Potential additional course offerings could include agriculture, dressmaking, crafts, pastry making, cooking, computing, beautician, embroidery, crafts, art and painting, electrician, bakery, blacksmith, piñata-making, and community health. We plan to have dedicated space for onsite vocational training on our new school campus. The Nicolás Fund for Education Capital Campaign is ongoing. A generous donor has agreed to match your donation up to $112,000 toward the full campus buildout. The reality is that some Nicolás Christian School graduates need to work immediately after high school graduation to help their families. Their families have already financially sacrificed the help of their son or daughter to allow them to study at Nicolás Christian School. Surveys of the few students who had to drop out of Nicolás Christian School state the number one reason for dropping out was financial. Even though Nicolás Christian School is free, these students need to earn money to help their families. Some students are not interested …
Building Up & Reaching Out – NFE New School Construction
On a plot of land just under 5 acres between a ‘bad milk tree’ and a ‘pito palo tree’[1], the new Nicolás Christian School will open its doors to potentially 300 students from grades 7 to 11 within 3 years. “That’s double the number we serve today in the leased building near Nebaj, Guatemala,” exclaims Becci Merritt, NFE President. The land purchase was made possible in 2018 by a grant from a generous donor. The site is in the town of Cotzal which is much closer to our students in the neighboring villages. The Capital Campaign to raise funds for New School Construction is well underway. Thank you to all the donors who have contributed so far. Thanks to your generous donations, we have met the required minimum budget to begin construction in 2022. We are still working to fully fund construction of the full campus designed by Building Goodness Foundation. The preliminary design for the new school was completed in early 2020, thanks to the expertise and pro bono support of the nonprofit Building Goodness Foundation. This includes the design of the site and utilities, the classroom building including kitchen, office, and multi-use classroom space. “The first building to be constructed will be approximately 14,500 square feet and we expect it to be sufficient space to allow the school to be fully functional (using some multi-purpose spaces) when it opens, even though other phases will eventually follow,” says Heidi Reynolds, NFE Board director leading the project. “Heidi has spearheaded our partnership with Building Goodness Foundation (BGF),” says Becci. “We are so grateful for her leadership.” Building Goodness Foundation has a stellar reputation in the construction industry for designing, …
Thank You for your Faithful Support!
Nicolás Fund for Education not only met but exceeded our fundraising goal for our April Fulfilling a Dream event! Thanks to our donors, we raised over $230,000, which positions us to meet about 65% of what we need to operate Nicolás Christian School and Nicolás Fund for Education programs in 2022. We will still need to raise $100,000 more by November 1 to fund all our programs in 2022. Thank you for your incredible generosity and faithfulness! You have proven your dedication to these Ixil students by providing education as a means to escape poverty. Building Up, Reaching Out Capital Campaign We are also publicly announcing our Capital Campaign to build a larger, permanent home for Nicolás Christian School! Please be on the lookout for our brochure arriving in your mailbox soon. We are eager to start construction on this energy-efficient structure that can accommodate twice as many students as our current leased location. Our property, located near Cotzal, will be much more convenient for families to attend school events and reduce our transportation costs. Our goal is to raise another $280,000 by October 1 so that we can break ground during the dry season next January to complete Phase 1. This building will also serve the entire community of Cotzal through adult literacy classes, online university classes on the weekend, and “weekend school” for students who must work during the week (allowing them to achieve a junior or senior high completion certificate). This building could also host large meetings such as the Global Leadership Summit, Teacher Professional Development meetings, lectures, concerts, and alcoholism recovery meetings. We are partnering with a US-based nonprofit, Building Goodness Foundation, that will provide onsite construction management …
Multimedia Development Volunteer
Are you creative and interested in sharing the good work Nicolás Fund For Education is doing? Nicolás Fund For Education is looking for a volunteer to help us conceptualize and create high quality multimedia designs to help advance NFE’s brand strategy, graphics, and collateral across digital channels.
