Volunteering in Guatemala: The Trip That Turned Into 25 Years | Casa Guatemala Ep, 173

Imagine going abroad to volunteer for a few months and realizing you never want to leave.

That's how Heather Graham ended up spending 25 years at Casa Guatemala, which has grown from an orphanage into a community model providing education, healthcare and daily nutrition to over 300 children across 30 villages.

In this episode, she reflects on what it takes to keep a school running off the grid, what she’s learned about the art of adapting, and the success stories that make it all worth it.

Learn how to support or volunteer at casa-guatemala.org.

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This episode was post produced by Podcast Boutique https://podcastboutique.com/

Transcript

A 4 A.M. Jungle Wake-Up

0:00

It's four in the morning. You're in the middle of a Guatemalan jungle. No electricity, no Wi-Fi, just the sound of animals waking up around you. And somehow, you've just been put in charge of a farm, plucking chickens before sunrise, feeding hundreds of people, and navigating a life that you never planned for, that was supposed to be temporary, just a few months of volunteering, but something happened: a connection, a purpose, a realization that walking away would be harder than staying. Twive years later, that short trip has become a life dedicated to serving hundreds of children. Welcome to the Truman Charities Podcast. I'm Jamie Truman, your host. Today I'm joined by Heather Graham, whose journey in Casa Guatemala is a powerful reminder that sometimes the path you didn't plan is the one you are most meant to follow. Heather speaks about how Casa Guatemala serves more than 300 children across 30 villages, providing education, health care, and daily nutrition in one of the most remote regions of the country. What started as an orphanage has evolved into a community-driven model on breaking generational cycles through access and opportunity. Now let's welcome Heather to Truman Charities.

From Seasonal Job To Lifework

1:18

So, Heather, you have to tell me the story. I was watching one of the videos that you have on Casa Guatemala. And you were talking about how in 2001 your plan was to come there and volunteer for a short period of time. And then you ended up there for four years. So tell me a little bit about that experience. Yeah, well, 25 years later, here I am. It was, it was one of those things where I had a summer job. It was seasonal, and I was like, okay, off season, I'll go and do some volunteer work and travel, maybe learn a little Spanish, just do something meaningful with my time off and away from work. And it was before there was Google, and I bought a book on international volunteering opportunities. And Casa Guatemala really just jumped out at me out of all of the different projects that was there. I really liked the idea of working with children, working with kind of indigenous communities as well, having like sustainable farming as an aspect of it, education. And at that time, we had a representative in Canada that lived in the same city that I did in Vancouver. So we met up and had lunch, and that kind of sealed the deal for me. And I decided, okay, well, this is what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna go down and spend my off season there. And within the first few months, I just realized that this was something that I truly connected to. And I think we're all, especially in our early 20s, trying to find that passion, that thing that drives us. And the connection I made with the people here in Guatemala, the children that we were serving, it made me decide that, you know, this was something more important than salmon fishing. So I quit my job on my salmon fishing boat and decided to stay here. And, you know, as time went on, I decided, you know, this is something that I could really see as a career for myself. I'm passionate about it. And I hadn't gone to university at that time, so I decided that I would go back to Canada and uh look for a school that offered a degree in nonprofit management so that I could kind of use the skills that I had already gained here in Guatemala, but actually get some practical knowledge to help that and come back here with those skill set, which is what I eventually

Learning The Farm The Hard Way

3:12

did. So tell me about Casa Guatemala. Like when you first arrived there, tell me what it was like and what were you guys able to do as volunteers there? Absolutely. The organization has definitely changed and grown as the needs have changed and grown over the years. So when I first arrived in 2001, we were still working as an orphanage. We had a bake farm, we had a school on site. So most of the volunteers were working with the smaller kids, the toddlers, just mostly with language barriers. It didn't matter if you could speak a lot of Spanish or not because everyone was learning Spanish together. And when I got here, they offered me a position to be the farm manager. I had had summers on my cousin's horse farm, uh, which really did not equate. But I was like, I was up for the task. And uh all of a sudden I was, you know, plucking 200 chickens at four o'clock in the morning every other day and kind of overseeing a large production of eggs and pork and chicken at the time. Back in the early days, we had the only place in the area that sold pork and chicken and eggs. It was before big supermarkets moved into the neighborhood. So I would go out on a boat and you know, sell our products to different villages and all the hotels and restaurants here. So it was a really unique opportunity for me. And as someone that had worked in hospitality, for instance, I ended up working here in our hotel. We have a social enterprise, which is a hotel and restaurant. And so my time kind of grew and my experience grew more into the administration with the organization, which allowed me to kind of have that broader look at you know the potential of where the organization could be and could go and kind of see where my skill set wanted to take me in working with the administration. So our founder was my mentor, and she really helped me to see that that's the things that I wanted to do. Tell me how the organization has evolved since 2000 when you got there in 2001 until now, because it has evolved quite a bit, and now you're serving over what 300 children from 30 different uh villages. Yeah, that's

Shifting Beyond The Orphanage Era

5:13

correct. So during the late 70s until the early 2000s, we were working also as an orphanage. So we were taking children in that were coming from the government, and we had a lot of adoptions going out, especially during the time of the Civil War. There were so many children that were coming into us. They stopped international adoptions in 2006 here in Guatemala. Guatemala has a lot of problems. Corruption is rampant on so many stages, and unfortunately, the adoption system was really riddled with corruption. Uh, it was very frustrating for an organization like us who had been working in adoptions for so long that all of a sudden a regular, pretty seamless adoption that should have been taking less than a year was taking up to three or four years because we weren't willing to place bribes and, you know, kind of be going against the system, which was really frustrating for us. It meant the kids that were with us weren't getting adopted as fast. And so when the country internationally was rejected from the international adoption program at the Hague Court, then we were looking at what we were going to do with 90 some children that were under our legal guardianship that were now never gonna have the opportunity to be adopted. So it was really sad. We had some kids, families of four kids that were mid-adoption and that was canceled on them. We decided that we would stop taking new kids in from the government and then focus our time and energy on raising those children that were with us. But part of what we had always done since the mid-80s when we came to Rio Dulce and opened our children's village was take in children from the indigenous communities of the area who had never had access to education before and give them our services as well as the children that were under our legal guardianship. So as our kids that were in our system aged out, there was more and more space in the houses, and we just opened up and we looked for more and more children who had never had access to education and opened our doors. And so now we have about 90 kids who are boarding students. They live on site during the school year and they go home on vacations and during the winter holidays. So it allows us to use the space that we have and really serve the community that's most vulnerable now at this time. Most of the families that we have coming in, it's the first generation of learners, which means mom and dad never had a chance to go to school. And so not only are we giving that education to the kids, but we're really bringing the value of an education to those families in general and showing them how important it is to invest in education and having those kids in school rather than having them just helping at home or working in the fields and not letting them continue their schooling after the sixth grade. So that's where our focus is now, and I think that we're making a huge

School Days In A Remote Jungle

7:47

impact. So, Heather, tell me a little bit, what does a typical day look like at Casa Guatemala? Well, no day is ever the same, although we do have a pretty good routine for the kids. The kids that live on site wake up around 6 a.m. and they get ready for school, have their breakfast, do their breakfast, their morning chores, and then school starts at 7:30. So the kids that live off-site, some kids walk back and forth every day because their village is adjacent and close to us. And then other kids that are in a village kind of in front of where we are, we have to go and pick them up in a boat. So the school boat goes over and picks them up at the docks and brings them over to school. And then classes start at 7:30. They've got a pretty long day. Here in Guatemala, school is only half a day in most schools, but we actually do a full day of classes, and that allows us to have some longer recess breaks. There's a half an hour break in the morning and a half hour hour break in the afternoon where they get a nice nutritious snack. And then we have a lunch break as well, which is either two hours or one hour, depending on which age group. Um, the younger kids have more time for kind of unrestricted play and rest. So there is a full day. Um we have a full curriculum. So we are a registered private school here in Guatemala, but our families really don't pay a private school fee or tuition. We have a symbolic fee at the beginning of the year of 24 quetzales, which is basically $3 per family, and a baby chicken or a baby duck, depending on what you have in your front yard. And that allows us to kind of grow our own animals. And uh, whenever we have a special celebration, we're able to use that chickens that we have on site there to make a special meal and the kids help. Now they're the ones plucking the chickens like I was all those years ago and helping to cook the meals. They really help out on the farm, they help out in the kitchen, they help out with the chores around the school in addition to all of the classes that they have. Yeah, so I was reading that it is kind of in a remote area, so it was a 20-minute boat ride for the volunteers to get to Casa Guatemala, is that right? Yeah, so our hotel where I'm at right now is in the town. But to get to Casa Guatemala, you can only get there by boat, and we're completely off-grid. So that's why I have to work in town because I need electricity and internet and stuff to do all of my fundraising work. But when you're living over at Casa Guatemala, you're off-grid. We have solar panels and we have a generator, and that means like the generator starts in the morning to get up, and then when it goes off at 8:30 in the evening, it's you're in darkness. You better have some candles and we have some solar lights and stuff in the volunteer house. So it's definitely rustic. It's definitely an adventure and a memorable occasion for anyone that comes to volunteer with us

Success Stories That Break Cycles

10:21

for sure. So can you tell me that maybe a success story or two of a child whose life trajectory, you know, changed because of Casa Guatemala? Oh, there's so many. There's dozens just off the top of my head. But, you know, having been here for the last 25 years, I've had the honor to watch so many children grow up with us. And uh this last year, one of our older boys who has continued to work with us, he is the head of our administration in Guatemala City. His name is Elmer Ramos, and um, he just graduated with his law degree. He's been working and putting himself through university over the last few years, and so he's now a lawyer. He's also the head of our organization for all of our administration work in the capital city and kind of my right hand as far as running the organization here in Guatemala. So I'm super proud that he's been able to reach that level and you know is just an upstanding person. Um, but I'm also really proud of, you know, the kid who ran away in middle school to play with his girlfriend and ended up having three kids, but is now like put himself through chef school and has a good job and is raising his family with love and commitment, something that he never had a chance to have growing up as an orphan. So, I mean, the accolades aren't necessarily as important as just seeing the quality of life that they're able to have and the cycles that they've been able to break. A lot of the kids came from really horrific and traumatizing situations. And for them to be able to break those cycles and be loving parents and caring, responsible adults, I don't really care where they work. I'm just happy that they're able to be successful in whichever way that they can.

Nutrition And The First Weeks Boarding

11:57

Yeah. So, yeah, in your opinion, how does you said that a lot of these children are coming from poverty-stricken areas? And how does malnutrition impact learning? And what changes have you seen when they've come to Casa Guatemala and be able to have nutritious meals? Yeah, I mean, it's incredible. If you look at the statistics, 45% of children that are under the age of five in Guatemala are chronically malnourished. And that is especially in the areas that we're working in. The rural Indigenous communities are the most heavy-hitted by that. As soon as the kids come to us, the first thing that we're doing is giving them physical checks. And a lot of times we'll find children that have chronic malnutrition. There have been cases where we've had to do extensive work with long-term health care, emergency situations to save children's lives that are coming to us in such poor states of health. And a lot of the times what we'll do is we'll kind of break our regular rule of having kids coming to us at five or six to live on site and even allowing like up to four-year-olds to come and live with us just so that we can make sure they're getting the food that they need. But you instantly see a difference. I mean, children are so adaptable. And when you start giving them a routine and we're giving them their regular meals, we're giving them uh what we have as like a fortified protein shake. It's like a warm beverage that they get every day with all the vitamins and minerals that they need to grow healthy and strong. So we make sure they're getting that every day in addition to a balanced diet. And you can see the changes. A lot of the kids, when they come, they can only speak their indigenous language, which is ketchi. And within months, they're learning Spanish, they're picking it up, you know, they're active, and you see them really starting to thrive, which is an amazing thing to do. And in the long term, the change that we see is kids that are growing up and um being much more conscious as parents as well, and ensuring that their kids are getting that healthy diet that they need as well. I wanted to ask you, when a child comes to Casa Guatemala, what do you think their challenge, the ones that are coming to board, what do you think are there any challenges for them kind of integrating into the program at first? Do you think it is the language barrier or is it just the change of environment? What do you experience? Great question. Yeah, it's hard. You know, first of all, they're just little kids. Most of them don't speak any Spanish yet. We try to have a program where we focus on having siblings be the priority of kids that do come in. So that's nice. They've got cousins, they've got older brothers and sisters there to kind of help with. We also make a focus to hire our house parents from the indigenous community. So all of our house moms and dads also speak Quechi. So at the end of the day, when they're coming home from classes, they don't have to keep trying to speak in Spanish. And even our teachers, we try to hire a lot of teachers that speak Quetchi as well, so that if they are in their classes and they're just learning, that they do have the opportunity to learn in their home mother language as well. And it's incredible to see how fast they take on the language skills. There's, you know, there's sad nights, there's nights where you know you're crying for mom. But thankfully, with technology, like we can face time. We can't face time. Mom will go up and find a spot where there's a little bit of signal on the mountain where they live, and the kids just will use the office phone. We've got uh office hours for them to come and all the moms and dads call. So every weekend and every evening, there's a lineup of kids on the stairs of the office just waiting so that they get that phone call home. And I think that makes a big difference, especially over the years of the increase of that ability of having technology and having the ability to have a FaceTime call with your mom in your own language kind of makes them feel better at the end of the day. So that's very helpful.

Clinic Care And Emergency Boat Rides

15:35

I wanted to talk a little bit about your on-site clinic. So, what role does that play, not only for the students, but for the surrounding communities? Right. So our clinic has a full-time nurse, so she sees to the day-to-day needs of the kids. It's usually tummy aches and headaches and, you know, fevers, things that kids will get here. But we also have a lot of surrounding communities that will use us as a first stop for any kind of emergencies. Where we are, it's so isolated that you know it can be life or death if you have the money to take a boat into where you can get to the hospital, which is another 45-minute drive away. So we will quite often provide our boat as an emergency ambulance until they get to the town here. And then we'll also coordinate to pay the gas of the real ambulance because quite often, if you can't pay the gas of the ambulance, the ambulance isn't going to take you to the hospital because it's a volunteer ambulance. So that's what we're able to do for the local community. Our nurse, it's just a nurse, we don't have a doctor on site. So anything that is kind of above her pay grade, we work with the health center in town here. So the public health clinic we work with to take kids in if they need to get a prescription, for instance, if we can be like, okay, this is definitely an antibiotic situation. So we'll go into town and get to a prescription and take them to the doctor. So we have a really good working relationship, and vice versa, they will come to us and vaccinate the kids in our clinic, and we'll provide them with transportation to get to the other rural communities where they need to get to to do their uh vaccinations. And in addition to working with the local Guatemalan free healthcare system that they have here, we work with international teams of doctors and now dentists that come to our clinic in order to see the children that we have on site as well as children from other villages. So we have a few teams per year that come and they do full checkups for all of the kids. And then when possible, we see the kids from the other villages as well. Same with the dentist groups now. We just recently last year had a addition of dental equipment added to our clinic, which means we have two now teams, one from the US and one from Canada, that come down yearly. And we're able to see all of the kids at Casa Guatemala, thanks to that, as well as kids that come from the surrounding villages that elsewhere would have no access to dental health care. You know, that's something that you don't typically think about, you know, like I wouldn't think about and a lot of other people of how important dental health is for these kids. So that's such a great new thing that you guys have available for all of these children. So, do you have any new programs or initiatives going on that you're excited

Rebuilding Classrooms And Teaching Robotics

18:04

about right now? Yeah, so currently we are doing a school restoration program. Our school has grown over the years with new buildings kind of being popped up as they went. And the oldest building that we have on site, which I think has been there since at least the 90s, is about to fall down. So we've uh we've taken the decision to say, let's take the kids out of here. We have earthquakes on the regular basis. Like even yesterday, there was like a 449 that just kind of shook us all up. So it was like, now is the time we need to say, let's move these kids into these new classes that we've just built, and we'll just kind of move things around a bit so that we can do a teardown and a rebuild. So we're really excited. We're fundraising right now to rebuild a significant part of the school. It's going to be an extension of where there were four classes. We'll now have room for six, and we'll be using kind of our local staff to build it. And then we've got some volunteer groups that are going to come down and help us as well. So that's one of the biggest projects kind of going on right now this year. But we also just had a donation of new laptops, well, new to us laptops. So that allows us to kind of really reopen mid-computer literacy here with the kids. And thanks to one of our local donors here in Guatemala, we actually have a STEM project where the kids are learning robotics and some like science and engineering through an online program. So we're getting that set up again for this year, which really is like mind-blowing to see. They sent us a 3D printer last year at the end of the year, and the kids got a chance to use it. And it was such an amazing video to watch them and like the glee and just awe that they had in seeing this little printer print out like tiny little boats or whatever it was that they were building on. So expanding that and watching that grow and giving these kids the option to have digital literacy that they can then go and take back to their communities so that when they do graduate and go on to higher learning, it's not necessarily where they have to go into large urban settings in order to find a job. They can get a Starlink and set up a home office and do work remotely if they have that skill set and those tools. So to me, I think it adds a lot of uh potential work experience for the kids in the future and a way for them to also hold on to their local community and their sense of cultural sustainability.

Fundraising Stress Plus Ways To Help

20:17

So you were mentioning fundraising, and I found this kind of fascinating that your organization receives no government funding. How do you maintain stability year to year? It's a lot of work. We actually are a registered charity here in Guatemala, in the US, and in Canada. So the three organizations work together so uh we can raise funds and be able to provide with each of the countries a tax-deductible receipt, which is a good incentive for a lot of people. And because we have been around for almost 50 years, we have a large base of steady donors who really help us to make this happen. But you never know. Last year we had one of our major donors with an oil and gas company. They lost their contract in Guatemala and left the country and really just left all their projects that they were working on. So we had to scramble and are still scrambling to replace that large chunk of funding that really made up for most of our nutrition program, as well as our school books and all of the school supplies, building supplies that we would need. So there's always moments where you are scrambling, trying not to live in crisis mode, but it's hard. Sometimes we're struggling from month to month. You never know, especially when we're throwing so many curveballs. You know, there's natural disasters, there's flooding, you know, we've got things going on in the global economy that all affect fundraising and the people's ability to make donations. So it can be pretty stressful, it can be very difficult at times, but we have some major donors who really kind of are the core support of what we're doing. And I am always expanding and looking for new grant funding and new foundations that can help us out as well. How do you see Casa Guatemala in the future in five to say 10 years? I would love to see us be able to. Expand our education program. I mean, our school runs from K to 6. We have kids staying on site to continue education at outside schools for their middle school and for their high school. But as more and more kids graduate and more and more families see the need and the value of higher education, I'd really love to be able to provide that here. One of the things that I'd like to do in the first step is to expand just our middle school here is three years. So it would be like seven, eight, and nine to have that on site. And then eventually, high school in Guatemala is kind of vocational based. So you graduate high school with a specific focus in what you've studied. And we have this beautiful space at our hotel where I really think that we could create an amazing school for entrepreneurialism and have kids be able to graduate in different focuses that would really help them to create their own businesses and find jobs here in the area based on what their skill sets are and what the need is here in our communities. So, what is the best way for people to help your organization? Definitely through donations. We love it when we have new monthly supporters. The great way to kind of have a constant support of people coming in. We call them our core supporters, which is the corazon in Spanish, is our heart and it's also the core of what we're doing. That is a great way for people to help us. But also volunteering, we have a great volunteer program because we do have our own hotel and restaurant. It's kind of an all-inclusive package where you come and stay in the hotel and go back and forth every day to spend some time with the kids. And I find that's a really great way for us not only to expand our kids' experience of meeting people from the outside world, but it also increases our ambassadors that we have out there, people that are able to speak on our behalf of the amazing work that we're doing. So it's a win-win situation for everybody. And it's a really beautiful experience to come and spend some time with us here in the jungle. Our school, it's just a paradise. You know, we are off-grid, completely isolated where we are. There's monkeys in the trees above the classrooms, there's fruit trees everywhere, and it really is a paradise. So I think people that come down, families, school groups, individuals that are traveling and have the opportunity to stay here with us and experience Casa Guatemala, really leave feeling different about the world around them and their place in it. So Heather, you started in 2001 as a volunteer and now you're running the organization. And what is it, but over 20 some years, right? At this point. So 25 years. What have you learned while being involved with this organization that has really surprised you? I think that what I have really learned is the ability to adapt and to kind of pivot in the moment with need be. I think a great example of that is, you know, when we all went through COVID, I think everyone had their experience of where we've all had to act quickly, make major changes, and roll with the punches. And I think, especially in the nonprofit world, in order to survive, you really do need to be able to roll with the punches, make the changes, and work with what you have with the resources available and the priority of you know the problems that you are facing. We were able to, I think, do a really good job in switching our program to remote learning when you have people that don't even have a smartphone and don't speak the language or know how to read or write now, suddenly in charge of teaching their children at home. Uh, but we made it work and we called on a lot of community support. So we would find the one person that had a smartphone that could use WhatsApp, and we would take pictures of the pages and then speak audio in catchy so that the parents would know what the kids had to do and the older cousin would pass the message on. We found ways where the whole country was shut down and no one was allowed to travel, but we couldn't get food to our students. So we sent money to the families so that they could fly locally and then also help support businesses within their small communities. And you know, and eventually, as school was able to come back in, we just changed and progressed and moved our programs around just to ensure that no matter what, the kids were getting what they needed, and that was their education and their health care and their nutrition programs and keeping them healthy and keeping them safe. And we did a really good job. We really didn't have any major health scares, thankfully, and we were able to have all the kids back on site by 2022. Well, Heather, before we wrap up, is there anything that we haven't touched on that you think someone should know? Well, I mean, I think being that this is a podcast based on philanthropy and philanthropists that are listening is just the importance of your role. I think that right now in today's world, it is so overwhelming that we have such access to so many things in the palm of our hand. And it can be just too much. It seems like, where can I make a difference? You know, it is so important that people pick their cause, pick their passion, find that one thing that you're not able to change the entire world. But if you can make an impact in one small organization, you really are changing the world because you're changing the world for that child, for that family, that community. It is a ripple effect. And so I think that philanthropists that see so much wrong with the world that they're able to focus on what really moves them. It's so important to small organizations like us. And I can say firsthand that if it wasn't for our major philanthropists who are really what drive us forward, small organizations like Casa Guatemala would not exist today. So it's important to find the cause that means something to you and you know, invest in that passion and like get to know the people that you're working with. And you really are gonna have a long-term commitment and relationship with the organization that you choose to focus on. Yeah, I could not agree more. I tell people all the time find an organization or two that really resonates with you and really get involved because if you just start looking at so many, it becomes overwhelming and you shut down. Absolutely. Yeah, just shut down. So, Heather, I want to thank you so much for coming on. Everybody, I will have all the information to get in touch with Heather and to volunteer and to donate for Casa Guatemala in our show notes. So just scroll down and you'll be able to get involved and help this organization. So I want to thank you and I want to thank everybody for tuning in to another episode of the Truman Charities Podcast. I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you'd like to support the Truman Charities Podcast, please take a minute to re-interview our podcast. They really do count, and I read each and every one of them. If you'd like to follow us, you can follow us on Instagram at Jamie underscore Truman Charities, Facebook at Truman Charities. You can follow me on LinkedIn at Jamie Truman, and make sure to go on to Trumancharities.com and sign up for our newsletter so you don't miss any of our upcoming events or of Bethesda's best happy hours. Thanks for tuning in to another episode of the Truman Charities Podcast. Until next time.