LAN VWA

As an organization, our primary goal is to create an effective method for connecting students with a secondary high school education in a sustainable way and empower those students to have a positive impact on their community. The needs we see in our students and the community become programs in our school. Examples of this are our clean water program and community garden.

Secondarily, we seek to Improve the basic education by expanding resources for the students at the existing primary schools. If the students have a better education at the primary level, they are less likely to drop out and more confident in moving to secondary school. Our reading program and math program are allowing us to work with younger children and students in the communities where we work. We are currently exploring the addition of a pre-school and kindergarten in Joconal.

Lastly, we focus on developing leaders in the areas we work in order to hand over the leadership to the community. Business and community development are a key part of truly empowering the community. This allows the people in the village to take financial responsibility, but more importantly shows the community that they have what they need to improve. It also ensures that the program will grow as defined by their culture not a foreign one.

Education alone does not change malnutrition, stunting, or poverty, but it is the first necessary step towards development and change. Access to education paired with focused community development is our approach to empowering communities to provide for their own futures. We are simply connecting the loose strings to provide an opportunity for change.

Each project we begin will follow the steps outlined in the life cycle of a school. The life cycle details the steps over the course of seven years for implementing a project through handing over control to the leaders in the respective areas. The key components include: an educational program and community development. Each step incorporates these two components and is vital to the long term success of the program.

1. After a project has been identified, the information gathering stage will begin. This process should take eight months. During this time, we will do a needs assessment, meet with the community, identify a location for the school, pre-register the students, and administer standardized testing.
2. After the information has been gathered, the next step will involve developing the program and leaders during the first two years of the program. During this time, the program will begin, leaders will be given roles, and a plan to move to financial independence will be outlined.
3. With the project up and running, we will spend the next two years nurturing the leaders and the program. During this time, the programs will continue to grow, the revenue generation model will launch, and we will begin to pull back a portion of our funding in the fifth year.
4. Once leaders are in their role and the program is fully grown, Lan Vwa will step back and watch. The teachers that have been hired will operate the classrooms and the Community Development Director will move into the position of an advisor. We will pull back 100% of the funding in the sixth year of the program.
5. As we are stepping back from the previous project, we will begin to look for other areas that have a need for our model.

As outlined in our life cycle, planting schools with an end goal of being self sustaining relies heavily on the revenue generation and support from the community. These steps ensure that we stay focused on this end goal. We begin casting the vision from day one, set goals for the leaders, and delegate responsibilities. Through these steps, we are empowering the leaders to be the driving force for change in their communities.

Currently the organization hosts successful programs located in Guatemala and Haiti. Led by a diverse and visionary board of 7 leaders and 5 paid staff, Lan Vwa is growing to see its potential every day. We have been working to develop our model since 2010 and have been successfully implementing since 2011. We have a proven concept that has produced results in a short amount of time.

We have been approached by community leaders throughout Guatemala to develop a program in their area. This request for support has prompted us to partner with other NGOs allowing us to maximize our resources. We are continually building relationships with other NGO's and active organizations that share our vision for sustainable development in order to support community leaders in finding the best solution for the need.

These relationships have opened the door to provide valuable opportunities in the community where we work. We have partnered with Global Community Works, EcoFilter, with volunteers to provide a clean water program for both our students at the secondary school and the government run primary school. A collaborative effort with the Boys and Girls Club of Asheville and AmeriCorps is providing students with much needed support in math and allowing us to begin introducing focused STEM courses to prepare our students for jobs in STEM related fields. Lastly, we have been able to connect our graduates with college scholarships provided by Ministerios Amor sin Temor in Guatemala City. We have two students attending post high school from our 2016 graduating class.

We have successfully implemented our project in Joconal, Guatemala. We have connected the village to accredited lower secondary and upper secondary education (7th thru 11th grades). We have incorporated a clean water, nutrition, professional development, reading, and math program in the village. In October 2016, we celebrated our first class of graduates.

We have not expanded into other areas beyond Joconal. Also, we have not fully completed the life-cycle of a school which means Joconal relies on Lan Vwa for funding.