History
The Beginning
Child Aid’s work in Latin America began 22 years ago, when husband and wife founders Rick Carroll and Nancy Press traveled to southern Mexico in 1987. There they witnessed the region’s crippling poverty and learned about the troubling lack of services available to deaf and hard-of-hearing children. What began with bringing excess hearing aids to a local Oaxacan doctor led to the creation of CORAL, a full service hearing program in Mexico. The only organization of its type in southern Mexico, CORAL assists more than 2500 hearing-disabled individuals and their families annually.
Guatemala and Reading for Life
Child Aid’s work in Guatemala was also born out of great need. On average, rural indigenous children in Guatemala finish only 3½ years of schooling, and more than 50 percent of Guatemalans cannot read beyond the simplest of words. In the last 16 years, Child Aid and its local partners have created 35 community libraries and 16 computer centers throughout the country.
The main thrust of our current work is our childhood literacy program Reading for Life, which brings together hundreds of librarians, teachers and community leaders to teach and promote reading. Today, more than 7200 children from 25 communities directly participate in Reading for Life. Thousands more benefit from the Spanish-language children’s books that we deliver to remote communities throughout the country.
People Not Projects
Our approach has always been to partner with local individuals and groups who have the motivation to create change but who lack the financial, material and technical resources to succeed. Our oft stated motto is “People not Projects,” for it is committed individuals not fancy buildings that cause lasting change. Recognizing that the lack of resources makes progress slow, if not impossible for the poor, Child Aid connects resources available in the United States with people in Guatemala who are working to make a better future for their communities.
