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In a time of great challenge for the Escuela Caracol and San Marcos community, a dear old friend of the school has emerged to offer assistance.
Ryan Lindsay, an incredible human being that, many years ago, spent a few months as a volunteer at our school, working with our founders to raise money to build the classroom building. He showed interest in becoming more active as a member of our community, and in finding ways to help. This past summer, that aspiration was realized: Ryan got in touch with Viviana Contreras (our fundraiser), and asked if he could help the school get back on its feet during COVID-19 by funding an in-house training program.
"I reached out to the school and heard back from Viviana," said Ryan from his home in Toronto, Canada. "Together we built a proposal for the training program. I also spoke with Josh (the Founder of Escuela Caracol), who is full of wisdom, about how to best serve the community from a distance. With a basic funding agreement in place, the teachers created an excellent program that will last four months."
"It is my intention to help, and provide any assistance and expertise I can, as someone with nearly 20 years experience working with Waldorf schools around the world. But the teachers at Escuela Caracol school know what is best for the school and the children, so I wanted to fund their plan; one we would be all proud of."
– Ryan Lindsay, Founder, antropía.
Ryan and Viviana worked with the school leadership to create a program that would deepen our faculty's teaching skill in math, grammer, art, music and child development, now known as our Teacher's and Community's Permanent Training Program. The program also helps us train parents to bring a culture of learning into the children's homes, something that Ryan expressed as essential.
In the spring Ryan established antropía, a Canadian not-for-profit organization with the goal of fostering Waldorf schools in Central America. He claimed that, "Escuela Caracol was the obvious first choice for a grantee. As much as anything in my life, the school and the people of Lake Atitlan have filled my heart with inspiration and formed me as a human being."
"The school is a true model of quality humanistic education that can be implemented anywhere in the world with minimal resources. It's the teachers and the community that create a sustainable future for the children, not fancy technology and corporate ideology. The children of Escuela Caracol go on to become confident, creative thinkers and collaborative problems solvers that will elevate their families, their village and the global community. I'm confident that the training program will further the teachers' ability to provide this experience for the children."
Guatemala and thus Esceuela are facing many tough challenges right now, and we our doing our best to keep our spirits up and forge ahead. This gift from Ryan has helped immensely. Our community is in constant growth, both locally and internationally, thanks to great friends and partners like Ryan Lindsay.
Thank you, Ryan, for being part of our family, and for helping us continue nurturing the heads, hearts, and hands of Mayan children from the western highlands of Guatemala.
antropía has launched a fundraising campaign to support these efforts, and promises to support to Escuela Caracol in future years if the campaign beats its $4000 goal.
You can support the campaign to fund the Teacher's and Community's Permanent Training Program on Ryan's GoFundMe page. Donations of any size will make a difference, and antropía will match your donation to double your impact!
A letter to my students
We recently celebrated Asociación Caracol's last assembly of the year.
Escuela Caracol projects to the community through Waldorf Pedagogy.
The Snail's Mural, walking he goes…
kite-making workshop for the community
Cacao Ceremony, ancestral tradition of the Mayan people. kite-making workshop for the community