Chatham Rotarians head to Guatemala to further aid projects

Chatham Rotarians are heading to Guatemala next week to help continue projects improving the lives of those in remote areas.

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Since 2017, the Rotary Club of Chatham has spearheaded two international projects in the Central American country.

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Starting with a clean water project, club officials worked with the Barillas Club in Guatemala to expand the program to focus on literacy and basic education.

Rotary provided RACHEL Plus systems, laptops, and teacher training to remote, Indigenous schools in the Central American nation’s northwest.

RACHEL, short for Remote Area Community Hotspot for Education and Learning, systems are 1,000-gigabyte wireless network servers that any laptop, tablet or smartphone in the area can access.

The portable device contains copies of educational websites in an offline format, plus thousands of electronic books, textbooks, classic literature, games, videos, Wikipedia and other material.

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Because it is in an offline format, RACHEL doesn’t require Internet access. Introducing RACHEL to a remote school, where there is no online access, gives students access to free digital educational content relevant to the regional school system.

Peter Tanner, head of the multidistrict Rotary initiative, has led all RACHEL projects, including writing the Rotary International Global Grants.

He has co-ordinated the different clubs, while the Gig Harbor, Wash. club spearheaded the wheelchair project with the Barillas Club.

The four global grants, plus the wheelchairs, add up to $665,000, Tanner said.

“(A total of) 110 schools will have digital libraries helping with their education, a village has safe water, and 260 disabled people have wheelchairs,” he said by email.

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“Most importantly, this has all been done through co-operation with Rotary Clubs in Guatemala, who know the needs and do all the legwork to make the projects successful.”

The Spanish version of RACHEL, developed in co-operation with Guatemala’s Education Ministry, contains Guatemalan texts and educational materials relevant to the local curriculum.

Schools that receive the system and laptops also get training for their teachers.

In the Chatham-Kent area, the Blenheim, Tilbury, Wallaceburg and Chatham Sunrise clubs have participated in the projects.

American partners include two Michigan clubs, Troy and Lake Orion Sunrise, two in Washington state and two in California.

Because of RACHEL’s success in northwest Guatemala, the club decided to launch the RACHEL 2 project in the northeastern Petén district. The third phase in now underway.

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Tania Sharpe, Chatham Rotary president, visited the country in 2019 to observe the progress.

“It was incredibly inspiring to see a project go from paper to action,” she said. “Without the support of the Rotarians in Guatemala, the project cannot succeed. Seeing the children, in particular young girls, using the laptops and researching subjects for school assignments was very personally fulfilling.”

Sharpe added she’s excited to see the project expanding, and looks forward to reconnecting with Rotarian friends in Barillas.

“It is truly inspiring to see what Rotary can do internationally,” she said. “Working on this global project through Rotary International provides me an opportunity to be part of a larger network and have a greater global view.”

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