As we approach the end of the year, we have been catching up with the community at our vocational school Centro Faustino Villanueva in San Agustín, Guatemala, where students and their teachers have been extremely busy! Fr Jairo Sevilla Mendoza MSC, director at the centre, has been in touch with some wonderful photos of the latest news from the school, from hard work and dedication to celebrations and graduations.
“We are already in the final stretch of the school year,” Fr Jairo writes, “a year full of hopes, but also of challenges due to some economic realities. We continue to move forward, with the great desire that young people achieve their goals and have better opportunities.”
Founded by the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart in 1984, Centro Faustino Villanueva has been dedicated to helping vulnerable and disadvantaged youths in the rural region of San Agustín, Alta Verapaz, and its surrounds, for over 40 years. The school is situated approximately eight hours’ drive from Guatemala City, in an extremely remote area, and is an invaluable resource for young people who would otherwise be isolated by their locality and the challenges raised by coming from backgrounds of severe poverty.
“It is with great gratitude that we thank you for your help,” Fr Jairo says. “With this, we can continue to make the support for the young people we accompany in our establishment a reality – especially the young scholarship holders who live at the boarding school.”
“I am glad to send a set of photographs of the students in workshops, on the farms, and at the graduation stage. We are currently in occupational training workshops, where our students are learning electricity, baking, and computers. This aims to support them so that they can carry out entrepreneurship in their villages or places where they are from.”
“Together, we are reaching goals. May God bless you always.”
Images courtesy of Fr Jairo Uriel Sevilla Mendoza MSC, Director of Centro Faustino Villanueva.