Hola!

¡Buenas! I’m Brantley Browning from Starbucks Coffee Company and I will be heading up a group of partners (employees) to visit the highlands of Guatemala. While there, we will be joined by our good friends at Save the Children — who won a competitive grant from Starbucks back in 2005 to introduce bilingual, bicultural education to 22 communities.

Working together with the Guatemalan Ministry of Education, parents, and their children, much progress has been made! For instance, more than 9,000 children are benefiting from early childhood development and basic education programs and the cool thing about this effort is that the curriculum centers on the inclusion of traditional Mayan stories. Many Mayan children living in rural areas reach school and may not have much knowledge of Spanish, which can be a barrier to participation in schools that solely teach Spanish. This new curriculum incorporates Mayan languages while weaving in Spanish over time — which increases the value of education for children and their communities without eroding cultural values.

My fellow group of partners and I will be working at several of the schools we have been supporting as well as visiting some coffee farms to learn about what it takes to grow and process such great coffee. Keep checking in — we’ll post new entries as often as possible!

Hasta la proxima — Brantley