Yuda Bands

We educate American youth on the importance of education and inspire them to participate in a 100% free school fundraise on their campus. American youth sell fair-trade leather and coconut bracelets called Yuda Bands. A byproduct of this project is creating jobs for local artisans in Guatemala. However, our main focus is to create sustainable lasting change through education. The funds raised through Yuda Band sales pays the tuition and school fees for youth in developing nations to attend high school in their own community.

Yuda Bands pays school fees for hundreds of students every school year. Local Yuda Bands directors in each sponsored program in the world work with youth to give them guidance and council on setting goals and also provide them life-skills and leadership training.

Only 20% of students graduating from Guatemalan high schools attain gainful employment. Because of this, Yuda Bands create a four year educational program called LEAD (Leadership, Education and Attitude Development) which we started implementing for every student in 2012. In 2016, Yuda Bands conducted a study which clearly showed that the LEAD program was boosting the likelihood of a student getting a job after graduating from high school by over 300%.

We are passionate about ending extreme poverty by providing education and opportunity. As we partner with US schools to sell Yuda Bands we are able to teach the importance of education to American youth, as well as raise funds for their International peers to go to high school around the world. As of 2019 Yuda Bands has covered school fees for all required years through graduation for 1,133 students in nine developing nations. 2,684 years of schooling has been paid so far from the support of 2,459 US partner schools running Yuda Bands projects.