This past week, the participants in Nani’s route (in Popola, Yaxunah, Kancabdzonot and Chimay) have been focusing on fundraising. All of the communities have hosted AMIGOS volunteers for the past 6 or 7 years, so many of the young people there are experts about AMIGOS and our Community Based Initiative Process.

Many community members sprang into action in deciding their projects. For example, in Chimay, they are going to continue expanding a central meeting structure and its patio by adding benches and lights. The community has been developing that space with AMIGOS for the past 4 years, adding a part to it each year.

In Popola, we are working with community members to build benches in their central plaza, install walls on a school bathroom and install a whiteboard in a new secondary school that the parents are building themselves. In order to get the maximum funding from AMIGOS for their projects, communities must fundraise themselves, and AMIGOS will match what they contribute. Our volunteers in all 4 of the communities were helping out this past week making panuchos, salbutes, flan, and empanadas with their host families to sell, and going door to door to both advertise and later deliver. In one community, our volunteers hosted a campfire for the kids, and fundraised by selling marshmallows to roast. Another community has hosted 3 movie nights, starting with a showing of Moana. It had been wonderful to see our young people jumping in to planning and organizing such events, and we look forward to the delivery of project materials this week!