The Centro Maya Project

The Centro Maya Project  is a social justice effort providing humanitarian, educational, and medical assistance to a rural Guatemalan community, with a focus on assisting persons with disabilities. The Project is based on respectful relationships developed between Project volunteers and the Maya people living in the highlands of Guatemala on the shores of Lake Atitlán.

As of June, 2010, the Centro Maya Project is recognized as a nonprofit corporation by the State of Iowa.

From 2002 until Spring, 2010, a social justice ministry of this congregation served this highland Guatemalan community and developed personal relationships that continue to grow under the Centro Maya Project. Members of over fifteen families went to this area of Guatemala as volunteers who took their loving hands and hearts as well as their professional skills to volunteer with a variety of projects to serve persons with disabilities and their families. Other individuals and families have provided generous support of the family food assistance program.

Current support includes:
Since 2007, the middle school/junior high Religious Education (ROPE) students have held an annual carnival to raise funds to provide an education aide so that a severely disabled child can attend public school.

Each year volunteers hold a nut sale and an annual concert to raise funds for direct services, such as speech therapy, hearing aid, and medical assistance programs.

In the past, the congregation’s supporters group:

• Added electricity for hot water and provided shower heads at a center for disabled children so the students could have access to hot showers. Most indigenous homes do not have access to hot water, many do not have showers, and no bath tubs exist in these villages.
• After the community was devastated by Hurricane Stan in 2005, bought food, cooking supplies, and blankets and supplied electricity to over 400 people in an emergency shelter where they lived for one-and-a-half years. The use of candles was eliminated when each family received wiring for one overhead electric light bulb, allowing the children to do their homework and preventing fire tragedies resulting from open candle flames.
• Donated a van to transport the children from the other villages to a center serving disabled children in San Juan la Laguna. The fire department used the van as an ambulance to transport people to the nearest hospital, an hour away.
• Donated education supplies, toys, musical instruments, and many essentials. In 2004 members of the Unitarian Church, Davenport, Iowa, drove to Tennessee, taking 16 boxes of that were shipped to San Juan la Laguna by Vine International for use at the center.
• Paid half the salary of a physical therapist, 2003 – 2008, who worked out of a center for disabled children in San Juan la Laguna.