Yesterday, we woke up to eat at 6:30 again. We’ve been getting into the swing of getting up early. After breakfast, we returned to the worksite and got back to work. We finished up the small part we had left for the trench of the conduit, and then helped the albañiles work on digging the ditches for the security fence. It wasn’t quite as hard as the day before, because we didn’t have to use pickaxes for quite as long, and instead were shoveling dirt most of the time. At lunch, we brought cake in celebration of our foreman Don Francisco’s birthday. Throughout the day, we took turns playing with the kids again. I got my first turn as I tried playing with and got to feed some kids. By the end of the day, the welding of the mounting system is finished, and everything is ready for when Lux Aeterna comes to bring the solar panels tomorrow. When we returned to the hotel, we got to relax by the pool again for a bit and have a great dinner as usual. After dinner, we all got together and tried watching movies with the expectation we could find subtitles, but couldn’t, so we tried making up lines to Interstellar ourselves. We’re still a little tired, but ready to go when the solar panels come today.
Today, we had an early start to our day at 6:30 AM, when we joined together to eat breakfast and discuss our day ahead. Here, the sun rises at around 5 AM, so it doesn’t feel that early, although waking up was much harder today than it was yesterday. At the worksite, our main goal today was to make substantial progress in digging the trench in which our wiring and conduit will go in and to get the mounting system ready for solar panel installation. We also started our first round of shifts of working in the clinic and entertaining the babies, in which two people took some time in the mornings to help out. I got to interact with some of the children today, and their smiles bring so much joy to me! Digging the trench was tough, but we all found out that there is more in us than we expected. Taking rounds between all of us, we dug a little over thirty more feet of our trench. The mounting system was also almost constructed. We walked out of the worksite stiff and sore, but we got to return to our lovely hotel and enjoy the beds and the pool. At night, we took a walk with Levny and went to a restaurant, where we had some incredible nachos, smoothies, and more. We all ate more than we really should have, but after this long, exhausting day of work, we truly appreciated this meal. We hope we won’t be too sore to work tomorrow, but right now, it hurts to type.
Today, our first workday, started bright and early with breakfast at 7AM. In Guatemala, breakfast is typically the biggest and most important meal of the day and our breakfast did not disappoint. The food was amazing, especially the peppery bread, fresh juice, coffee, creamy avocado. Then we headed out to see the clinic and the project site for the first time. The drive to the clinic was another long, winding (and very bumpy) road with the same beautiful views from yesterday. Seeing the clinic for the first time and meeting Hermana Edna was so exciting. The pre-arrival construction was going well and we jumped in and started helping mix and pour the concrete for the bases of the mounting system. Throughout the day, we saw lizards running around on their hind legs, a team member fell victim to a vulture’s mierda, and our hands got covered in blisters from the pickaxes. And we got a chance to meeting some of the children in the clinic! All in all, we ended the day completing the bases for the mounting system and relaxing in the pool, exhausted but really happy to finally be working on the project we had spent so much time working up to.
Yesterday, May 21st, our team left bright & early to catch our 9 AM flight to Guatemala City! The flight was very short at just over 2 hours. We landed safely in Guatemala City where we were picked up by Don Edgar, Levny and Marlon. From there we had a 3 hour bus ride to our hotel in Teculután, which is beautiful. We had a Skype orientation with Victor and Megan Garrido, the co-founders of AP1. Today, we will be going to the hardware store, clinic, and bank to exchange currency. Stay tuned to see more project updates!
– Emily Hannon, Project Manager
Team Guatemala would like to thank all of you who have generously donated to our campaign to install solar panels for Hermana Edna’s malnutrition clinic! We hope all of you have enjoyed your Thanksgiving holiday.
We are now entering the fourth week of our HornRaiser campaign! So far we have raised $3,555, which is 23% of our $15,000 goal. We have 23 days left to raise $11,445 to meet our goal! Please share our HornRaiser campaign, Facebook page, or website with your friends and family so we may share our project with others and make a positive impact on the lives of Guatemalan children suffering from symptoms of chronic malnutrition.
Here are a few updates on what the team has been up to during the past two weeks:
We arranged and attended a tour of a newly installed solar panel system with the LCRA here in Austin, and learned specifics about the installation process and different types of technologies regarding mounting systems and inverters. You can see some photos from our trip below!
The team has continued to consult professionals about different technologies regarding solar panel systems so we may choose the best system for Hermana Edna and her staff. We have been working hard to determine the pros and cons of different inverter systems, considering their costs and potential energy losses.
We have been preparing for our Milestone II Presentation to the Service Learning Advisory Board (SLAB), which we will be giving tomorrow! We will be detailing several portions of our project, including our technology review, budget, and plans for the winter break coming up soon.
As always, thank you to all of our donors and supporters for supporting our project and our goals as a team.We would love to hear from our donors if you have any questions or comments about our goals and our progress. Please feel free to e-mail us at guatemala.puc2017@gmail.com for these inquiries!
As Week 1 of our HornRaiser campaign is coming to a close, PUC Guatemala would like to thank all of our generous donors and those of you who have aided in our cause. We cannot thank you all enough for your support as we move forward in the phases of our project. At the end of Week 1, we are 9% funded, but we still have a long way to go! We have 38 days left to raise the remaining $13,523 required to meet our project goal. We would like to expand our network as much as possible, and you can help us by sharing our HornRaiser or Facebook page to spread the word about our work and read more details about our progress.
Over the past week, PUC Guatemala has been working hard to expand our fundraising network, finalize grant proposals, and conduct more research into the different types solar technology and ground-mounts for solar energy systems. We have been in contact with Guatemalan-based solar energy providers Lux Aeterna and SolarGuat to discuss the necessary components of a grid-tied system, the installation process, and a detailed list of materials so we may refine the budget for our project. On Friday, our team led a presentation and several discussions on cultural humility and service learning, which helps us learn how to have a real, positive impact abroad. In the midst of our extensive research and planning, we have been preparing for our Milestone II Presentation to our Service Learning Advisory Board (SLAB), which is an advisory board of our mentors, technical advisors, and other PUC program coordinators, who give us feedback on our progress as we move forward. In short, PUC Guatemala is always hard at work, and our team members are getting closer and closer to meeting our goal!
As a team, we would love to hear from our donors if you have any questions or comments about our goals and our progress. Please feel free to e-mail us for these inquiries via the “Contact Us” tab on our webpage.
WHOA, TODAY IS AN EXCITING DAY!!!! Today, our HornRaiser campaign launches with our $15,000 fundraising goal to fund the cost of installing a ground-mounted solar panel energy system for a children’s malnutrition clinic in Guatemala. Our fundraising campaign will last 45 days, giving us 45 days to reach our $15,000 goal. Please consider donating to our cause or sharing our page with anyone interested in supporting us. Every donation goes towards the cost of the project (not student travel budgets!) and is completely tax-deductible. DONATE HERE: https://hornraiser.utexas.edu/pucguatemala17
Projects with Under-Served Communities, Team Guatemala, 2016-2017
Who are we?
We are a group of passionate undergraduate engineering and social work students working together to design and implement a project to help address the critical problem of chronic malnutrition in Guatemala. We strive to use our engineering and social work skills to make a positive impact on people’s lives!
What are we doing?
The PUC Guatemala team has partnered with the non-governmental organization Asociación Proyecto 1 (AP1) to design and build solar panels to provide electrical power for a children’s malnutrition clinic located in the town of San Agustín Acasaguastlán in Guatemala. Providing the malnutrition clinic with a sustainable source of power will greatly decrease expenses of electricity for the clinic so that the money can be put towards medicine, food, and medical equipment for the children, all of which are vital to their recovery.
This project is being conducted in association with the Projects for Under-served Communities (PUC) program at The University of Texas at Austin, a student-led program which works to partner with non-governmental organizations to provide technical solutions which address the needs of a community in a developing country. We will spend a year planning and designing our project in PUC’s management and design course, and we will then travel to Guatemala to implement our project in partnership with Asociación Proyecto 1 (AP1) and local community leaders.
Making an impact.
Almost 50% of Guatemalan children suffer from the effects of chronic malnutrition and undernutrition. The long-lasting effects of these conditions follow a child into adulthood, impairing their ability to contribute to the economic development of their community and overarching society, which in turn perpetuates poverty. The malnutrition clinic which we are working with takes these children in and nurses them to health, while also setting them up for long term healthiness.
We believe that everyone deserves a chance at a healthy life. The clinic, run by a nun Hermana Edna, is one of the few places children can turn to when in need. Places like this are improving the quality of life in Guatemala, and we want to help facilitate the cause by giving them a cheaper and cleaner source of energy. We chose solar energy because of its robust quality and its environmentally-friendly impact.
Our Goal.
We need your help to make a difference for a cause that we are extremely passionate about. Not only are we helping this malnutrition center become self-sufficient, we are working towards easing the effects of chronic malnutrition on children in Guatemala. While each student is responsible for their own travel expenses, the team must fundraise for the cost of the project itself. We need to $15,000 to cover the cost of our ground-mounted solar panel system which we will be installing for the malnutrition clinic. This means that every dollar that we raise will go directly to the benefit of the clinic, the children of our community, and our team’s education as we grow to become professionals in our careers and leaders in our communities. All donations are tax deductible, as donations through our HornRaiser site go directly through The University of Texas at Austin.
Every dollar counts, so any donation will be greatly appreciated. Please spread the word to your family, friends, and colleagues!
Help us start something that changes the world. Hook ’em Horns!
Projects with Under-served Communities: Team Guatemala 