Amigos de Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz la Laguna, Guatemala

The mission of Amigos de Santa Cruz is to help improve the lives of the indigenous people of Santa Cruz la Laguna and surrounding villages through support for education, better health, a cleaner environment and sustainable economic development.
 
What started out in 1998 as an effort to help support education by providing the local school with needed books and supplies, has grown organically over the years along with the children that we first served. Amigos efforts have followed the needs presented to us by the community.

Today Amigos has a local staff of 18, many of whom are graduates of our higher education scholarship program.  They run our programs, including  nutrition programs and our scholarship program. They are also learning how to plan for and manage CECAP, our new 5,000 sq. foot vocational education center. They are now models for other younger students, and they are our future leaders. 
 
What make Amigos unique is that they have chosen to focus on the rural communities that make up Santa Cruz La Laguna, a total population of about 6,000, rather than spreading our resources out to a farther reach. They are participating in a generational change in our villages that is powerful. We  are watching what can happen when a generation becomes educated for the first time.
 
See more at their website.