GUATEMALA
guatemala
Location: Central America
Language: Spanish
Guatemala is home to rainforests, ancient Mayan sites, and volcanoes – you may have heard about the eruption of Volcan Fuego near the end of 2018. Guatemala is the most populated country in Central America. The capital, Guatemala City, is split into 21 zones and is home to over two million people. Guatemala is considered a biodiversity hotspot due to the large number of different ecosystems within its borders.
About el trebol, guatemala city
The largest dumpsite in Central America, El Trebol began in 1966 and receives about 300,000 tons of household, commercial, industrial and medical waste each year. It is estimated that 2,000 recyclers, or “guajeros” work at the site. Underground fires with acrid smoke sporadically break out at the dump. Pungent smells, insects and animals fills the residential communities surrounding the dump, and leachate from the dumpsite drains into the Zaila and Chinautla rivers.
What we do here
Give Scholarships
We currently support the education of over 100 students in Ethiopia through our Paso a Paso program.
Host Service Immersions
We host 30+ service immersions a year with high schools, universities, organizations, and churches.
Host Medical Missions
We go on several medical missions a year to bring medical care to communities that don’t have access to doctors.
Support Schools
We help pay for schools in garbage dump communities, so they can continue to run and hire excellent staff.
Build Homes
We build homes for families that don’t have them through a mix of volunteer work and contracting local businesses.
Advocate
We advocate for the individuals in these communities by bringing their stories back to the U.S.
Who we’ve impacted
Note: We are committed to respecting and uplifting our scholars. Due to some stories containing sensitive information, we redact or change the names of the scholars, their parents, their schools, and other details that could compromise their anonymity.
When Nothing’s For Dinner
Our team meeting this past week was a tough one. Each week, we discuss the 100 or so “connections” that our team members recorded the week before about their one-on-one meetings with our Samaritan Scholars or their parents around the world. These conversations tend to be either challenging or uplifting, but last week’s connections were just unsettling. More and more of our scholars’ families are returning to dumpsites to find food to eat. We can’t look past that.
Here’s an excerpt from a connection that one of our team members, Laura, made in Villa Guadalupe:
There are days when things go so badly that Rosa’s* grandma has to resort to bringing food that she finds in the garbage dump, and it is not in good condition. She is aware that Rosa must have gotten sick from food that she found on Saturday, and she knows that it was not in the best condition. But she said that she does not know what else to do.
She feels terrible for having to give that type of food to her grandchildren. She knows that God does not abandon them, but she feels that these moments are really difficult and there are days when she breaks down.
Laura took this photo of the chicken that Rosa’s grandmother found in the dump.
Our Health and Wellness Specialist in Ethiopia, Selam K., wrote this in a recent connection:
Amira* asked me for a multivitamin. When I asked her why, what she said broke my heart.
“There is a scarcity of food at home. The price of Teff and other commodities has skyrocketed, leading us to exhaust the last piece of Teff we had a week ago. There are kind teachers in our school who buy lunch for us struggling students three times a week. We are about ten in number. The meal typically consists of bread with stew. I thought that by taking multivitamins, I could at least stay healthy. Today, I had to pack the bread for later, so that I won’t get so hungry when I study late at night.”
She opened her bag to show me the loaf of bread. I couldn’t meet her eyes directly. I felt so bad.
From Erika, our Program Director in San Pedro Sula, Honduras:
Today, Mrs. Guzman* asked us for permission to take her daughter Carmen to work at the garbage dump, because the situation at home is very difficult. She and her husband work inside the dump all day to be able to sell recyclables, and they are also bringing food home from the landfill because sometimes they go to bed without eating.
There were a handful more like these, and all these connections were just in the last week alone!
Hunger and malnutrition are problems we had actually solved for 30 straight months after the pandemic began. With your support, we were providing roughly $100 worth of food per month to all 900 of our Samaritan Scholar families to help them survive the impact of the pandemic on the informal economy.
In those two and a half years, you could literally see the difference in the texture of their skin. Their teachers marveled at how healthy they had become.
Last year, we reduced the food support we were providing by 75%, and gave our team leaders discretion to use the remaining funds to help families with the most need. We have learned that this is not enough to stave off malnourishment, and we are determined to do more.
No child should ever have to work in a dump to survive. And nobody of any age should ever have to look for food in a dump. These are the beliefs we live by for the people in every International Samaritan community.
In discussing these challenges with our Board of Trustees, we have decided to increase our commitment to support food and other urgent needs in our communities.
So now we turn to you, friends and supporters of these communities, to ask you to consider supporting the cost of a food basket each month for the rest of the year. Would you prayerfully consider becoming a monthly donor? If you give $100 per month, you will give a family a lifeline of strength and hope each month.
They need you desperately. We are praying for miracles for them. The smile on this scholar’s face from a connection this week is the difference you can make for others today.
Using the critical needs fund, team members were able to provide food for this scholar and her family.
Laura wrote:
Our scholar couldn’t stop smiling when she saw so much food! She said that they were finally going to eat well. For her, this represents that God is always at their side and that there are people who really care about their well-being and look for ways to help them with whatever they need, from their education to their health.
*Names were changed to protect their privacy.
Mike Tenbusch, President
Mike joined International Samaritan in 2018 after two decades of leading social change in his hometown of Detroit, Michigan. He’s a University of Michigan Law grad and author of The Jonathan Effect: Helping Kids and Schools Win the Battle Against Poverty. He and his wife, Maritza, have three children who keep them young.
When Nothing’s For Dinner
Our team meeting this past week was a tough one. Each week, we discuss the 100 or so “connections'' that our team members recorded the week before about their one-on-one meetings with our Samaritan Scholars or their parents around the world. These conversations tend...
Faith, Hope, Love
I see our organization as a beacon of light, a force for good. The Samaritan Scholars and team members I work with are a testament to the boundless power of faith, hope, and love to transform lives and uplift communities.FaithAt the heart of International Samaritan...
A 180-Degree Turn
Working as our Program Director in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, I regularly see one of the worst forms of child labor: children working in garbage dumps. And yet I also get the chance to tell students, in person, that there's another way. By studying and working hard at...
8 Over 80
In just about every big city, a 40 under 40 list is published each year to recognize 40 people under the age of 40 who accomplished something special that year. It’s supposed to be a big deal, but is it really? Heck, you can do so many things under 40. Do something...
Filling the Gap
A note from Mike ...In our mission to help people break out of poverty, we find it helpful not just to study the causes of poverty but also the causes of prosperity too. Factors ranging from national policy issues to cultural values and local community challenges can...
About Us
International Samaritan is a nonprofit organization with the designation 501(c)(3). Our headquarters is located in Ann Arbor Michigan.
