Fuertelezandose

After a semester of hard work and planning it was finally time to depart for the country we've all grown to love, Guatemala. We had finally come up with an idea for our capstone project that we felt would really benefit the disabled population and their families in Joya de las Flores. It was now time to put that work to the test and see what we could do. Going into it, we had no idea if it was going to work as we had hoped, especially after we arrived in Joya de las Flores and they hit us with the news that there would be be 3 times as many children participating in our program as we had anticipated or planned. But that didn't stop us!

The first day was focused on conducting the focus groups with the volunteers and caregivers, as well as training the volunteers for the "boot camp." The focus groups are intended to assess the attitudes of the community on people with disabilities. From Day 1 we could tell we were handed a wonderful group of volunteers. They all caught on so fast. After training the volunteers the next step was to pair each volunteer with a child with disabilities. The first day of "boot camp" we worked very closely with the volunteers teaching them ways to interact with the children, as well as performing appropriate exercises for each different child. We could tell the volunteers were a little nervous, but that didn't last long. It was great to see how quickly the volunteers caught on, even with the language barrier. As the week went on, we stepped back more and more allowing the volunteers to become more comfortable with the children. By the 3rd and final day of "boot camp" we were beyond impressed with the way the volunteers were interacting with the children, and felt more than confident in their ability to continue this program after we left. We truly were handed a group of volunteers who were "natural therapists."

After the completion of the program we held two more focus groups with the volunteers and caregivers. At this time we are unaware of the results of the caregiver focus groups, but th

ere was a clear positive emotional response at the completion of the program. Even when we thought the volunteers couldn't surprise us or impress us any more than they already had, listening to them during the final focus group was incredible. They are future leaders of the community and they are all amazing with huge hearts. Based on our experience we feel this project made a big difference in the community of Joya de las Flores. We were able to benefit the lives of the children with disabilities by giving them a place to come and interact with other children and people of the community. We also had a big impact on the caregivers of the children with disabilities by allowing them to take a break from caring for their child with disabilities. It is a huge burden here to have a child with disabilities when you are forced to care for multiple other children, work, and take care of the home all at the same time. Many people here believe that when they have a child with disabilities it's a curse and often times that child is forced to be hidden in the home. That was the biggest goal of this project, to be able to advance social inclusion of people with disabilities in the community of Joya de las Flores. All in all, we feel we've opened the minds of the people in the community towards people with disabilities.

After all this hard work, we have completed our goal and now we are excited to begin to analyze the results when we return to the states.

Adios from Guatemala,
Kristen Cunningham