30 - 31 October 2024: Sixth Grade Graduation and Learning about the School’s Founders

A week after I arrived at the School of Hope, they held an evening graduation ceremony for 6^th graders.  Volunteers were invited to attend the event which was held in a municipal building in Jocotenango.  I decided to go and found it worthwhile although I was unable to understand much of the speeches which were in Spanish.  An exception was the inspiring speech given by David Mckee who, along with his daughter, Sophie, founded the school in 2002.  David spoke slowly and distinctly in Spanish and I got most of it.  

David Mckee, CEO and co-founder of the School of Hope offers some words of wisdom and encouragement to the sixth-grade graduates.

 

In addition to handing out diplomas and special awards, a small school band entertained with traditional Guatemalan instruments.  Students danced with each other and with their opposite sex parent. I don’t remember having nearly as much fun at my 6^th grade graduation way back in 1958 in Warwick, Rhode Island.  

The school band played traditional and lively Guatemalan music.  I was impressed with their talent.

Diego, one of the grads, had been in an English/ecology class I’d helped with during my first week here.  He gave a short talk in English and I was pleased at how good his pronunciation was. 

 

After the ceremonies, we were served dinner (a good vegetarian plate for me).  I was fortunate to be seated next to Sophie Mckee and across from David.  Sophie fell in love with Guatemala at age 18 when she visited with her aunt and uncle.  She had known as a teenager in the U.K. that she wanted to help children in poor countries.  After finishing secondary school, she spent 6 months as a volunteer at a school in Guatemala before starting her university studies.  Sometime later, she was working again with the same Guatemalan school which had fallen into financial difficulty.  She and David decided to establish the School of Hope and took students and teachers from the failing school to their new venture.  That was 22 years ago, and the School of Hope continues to prosper with a dedicated local staff, individual donors who sponsor individual students, and grants from foundations.  I was very impressed with the selfless dedication of Sophie and David to the cause of helping Guatemalan children get good educations which can lift them out of poverty.  They are clearly not using the School of Hope as a means to gain public recognition for themselves.  Their reward is seeing their students succeed. 

School of Hope staff present a sixth grader with her diploma.

One of the 6^th grade grads gets around in a wheelchair.

 

The following afternoon, I had a pleasant ½ hour conversation with David Mckee.  I told David that I am turned off by organizations that regularly spam me with emails and junk mail to guilt trip me into donating money.  I cited the example of Doctors without Borders that regularly sends me shopping bags, flashlight pens, etc.  David assured me that their foundation (Education for the Children which funds the school) does not do that.  He has found that the best way to get people to contribute is to tell stories – stories about the successes and, sometimes, failures of their students.  As a result, he doesn’t have to ask for money.  Instead, people want to know how they can help. 

David spoke about gang activity.  He knows that gangs exist in the area but in 22 years, the school has never been burglarized.  He suspects that that any local gangs protect the school because they know it is helping the community’s children.  He speculates that there may even be students whose fathers are gang members.

David and I quickly learned that we are more or less on the same page politically.  I lambasted the majority of wealthy people who do little to better the world and seem to always want more for themselves no matter how rich they already are.  I cited the example of Elon Musk – He is supposedly the richest person in the world but what does he do for the poor, I wondered.  David thinks that people like Musk and big corporations do give to charities, BUT it tends to be giving that helps them or their company.  For example, if a corporation wants to set up a factory in a poor country because of the availability of cheap labor and no unions, they may well fund a local school, pay for scholarships for university training, or help establish a local hospital.  But it’s all about their bottom line because they need an educated and healthy workforce. And, of course, it’s good for their public image which is also important to their profit margins.

You can learn more about the School of Hope on their website: https://www.eftcfoundation.org/the-school-of-hope.  On the website, you can access a video of an interview with Sophie and David in which they explain how the school got started.  In the video, David gives a concise summary of their mission:  “On day one, we did it for the children.  We were trying to right a wrong which. is:  If you’re born into poverty and you don’t get access to education and you don’t get access to medical care, that’s wrong.  So we fix it.”