Safe Passage Marks 25 Years of Impact in Guatemala
Twenty-five years ago, the communities surrounding the municipal garbage dump in Guatemala City were isolated from the outside world and bore some of the harshest living conditions in not just Guatemala, but all of Latin America. When Safe Passage Founder Hanley Denning first visited the garbage dump in 1999, she couldn’t turn away. Her decision to call her parents in Maine and ask them to sell her belongings and send the funds to Guatemala began a beautifully transformative tale that has sent ripples of love, generosity, and transformation worldwide.
Over the last 25 years, Safe Passage and the communities that they serve have continued to evolve through constant evaluation, analysis, and the commitment of dedicated people from Guatemala and around the world. Today, Safe Passage is a full-day, holistic school offering 550 students per year, one of the highest quality educations available in Guatemala. Students receive 4 healthy meals and snacks daily, access to preventative and acute healthcare services, social workers and psychologists in every building, mindfulness and meditation daily, English and Kaqchikel (Mayan) language classes, technology and STEAM curricula, sexual and reproductive health education.
Safe Passage serves over 3,000 community members annually and has become a catalyst for hundreds of families to break the cycle of poverty within one generation.
This is not to say that the communities surrounding the garbage dump are still not experiencing some of the highest rates of poverty, violence, and discrimination in the country. Conditions in the neighborhoods are very tough, and like many mostly – Indigenous Maya communities in Guatemala – government services and investment are woefully inadequate. Informal workers pay the municipality for permission to enter the dump to remove and sell the recycling and waste that their families subsist on. Gang violence occurs at the highest rates in the Americas, and the community is exposed to violence, trauma, and environmental contamination beyond imagination. The families who do Guatemala City’s most important environmental work of recycling and reducing the waste entering the landfill are exploited and mistreated.
And also within this complicated ecosystem, there is beauty, strength, and years of powerful community development. “Over 25 years, Safe Passage has witnessed significant community transformations,” highlights Erin Mooney, the organization’s Executive Director, “Our students are coming to us more ready to learn than ever before, thanks to sustained investments in education, health, and community development from Safe Passage, community leaders, and many partner organizations. This foundation allows us to provide an exceptional education, prepare our graduates to face systemic challenges, and seize opportunities for the future. Students are graduating with the academic foundation, intrinsic motivation, and leadership to succeed in university studies, jobs, or whatever they may dream. Many of them dream of changing systemic inequities.”
Twenty five years after their founding and 18 years after Hanley’s tragic death, Safe Passage continues to fight the odds and the systemic barriers that the students and families it serves face. As the organization evolves, many students express themselves as change makers and cycle breakers for their families, communities, and Guatemala. As one recent graduate shared, “we are people of change.”
Safe Passage invites supporters worldwide to join this journey. Individual financial contributions, corporate partnerships, and grants sustain this vital mission. As Safe Passage celebrates 25 years of impact and transformation, it is still guided by Hanley’s words: “We have work to do.” To join them, please visit the website or email or Rachel Meyn Ugarte, Director of Development @ [email protected], or to arrange a visit to the campus, please email [email protected].
