“Freedom of Choice through Education and Opportunity”
mission
The John T. Way Global Education Foundation, Inc.
Mission Statement
“Freedom of Choice through Education and Opportunity”
The John T. Way Global Education Foundation exists to transform the potential of an ever-widening population to create and shape, participate in, and benefit from the economy in its geographic area. It exists so that a young person from a place like Panajachel, Guatemala, might have the choice to stay in Panajachel and thrive. Its goal is to equip young men and women with the tools they need to confront the realities of globalization while at the same time using its own institutional and economic structure to generate job opportunities and improve the overall standard of living. As such, the Foundation is dedicated to fomenting freedom of choice through education and opportunity.
Lake Atitlán
“Aquí Me Quedo”—The Power to Choose One’s Home
The guiding slogan of the Foundation is “Aquí Me Quedo.” A phrase that translates into English as “I’m staying here,” Aquí Me Quedo invokes the possibility of a sea-change in the dominant attitude toward economic development in areas like the Lake Atitlán valley of highland Guatemala, where Panajachel is located. Today, the “smart money” amongst both the middle and lower classes in the Atitlán area is on leaving; popular wisdom says, go away from here if you want to make anything of your life. And so they do go. They go to Guatemala City, they go to Europe, and most of all, they go to the United States. Indeed, the most popular discourse around Lake Atitlán is the narrative of leaving—of embarking upon a dangerous exodus to the U.S.A. The result for the area is tragic. The Lake Atitlán region is not only losing its most valuable resource, young people, but is suffering from a dissolution of its rich Mayan culture as communities fray. The “development” that does come to the area, meanwhile, is exogenous, providing little opportunity for the overall advancement of the local population on its own terms. The Foundation exists to provide structural solutions to this dilemma, first in the Lake Atitlán region of highland Guatemala, and second in any area of Latin America similarly afflicted by the economic realities in which we live.
Transnational Vision, Transnational Opportunity
The Foundation is dedicated to thinking outside the box of the nation-state. “Aquí Me Quedo” references not only the empowerment of Mayan children to be able to remain in their place of origin should they choose to do so, but also the choice of educators from around the world to stay and sink roots in Guatemala. The Foundation and its projects will create an academic environment that is at once locally and transnationally based. Its goal is to form a vibrant, multicultural, multinational community of academics that—far from working as a top-down team of educators out to “save” the local population—instead becomes a part of that population and works within it to forge a more just and democratic world. Just as the creation of world-class institutions of learning and educational projects in an area like the Lake Atitlán valley represents an alternative possibility for young men and women born in the area, so too does it represent an alternative for thinkers and creators from Guatemala and other lands who wish to use their talents outside the strictures of their own bureaucratized nation-states and hierarchical academies. In Foundation projects, no one gives more than she or he receives.
Business Plan: The Big Picture
In brief, the Foundation’s business plan is to:
- Support the Atitlán Multicultural Academy (AMA), a K-12, English-Language International School in Panajachel, Sololá, Guatemala, in its mission of becoming the best and most accessible college preparatory school in the nation. The Foundation will support the school’s projects and programs by providing scholarships, fellowships, internships, endowment(s), grants and disbursements to support any reasonable aspect of project development, and the like.
- Encourage and support the creation of other educational enterprises in the Lake Atitlán area. Any viable plan that brings the power of education to the local community will be considered (for example, plans might range from developing a scholarship program for local youth or teachers to creating a topnotch bilingual Spanish-Kaqchikel Mayan school to creating a biological reserve and research center to preserve the lake ecosystem).
- Open a bilingual (Spanish-English) liberal arts college with the ultimate goal of its becoming an institution that can grant accredited Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Science degrees. This institution will not only stimulate international educational interchange, but will also bring the benefits of liberal arts education (one of the major contributions of higher education in the United States to the world) to Latin America.
(A natural offspring of the college will be the creation of the need for both non-academic, non-tourism related skilled and non-skilled jobs, thus also benefiting the typically lowest economic strata who have no innate desire nor disposition for career paths based in higher education. By providing jobs for this sector, the reality of the Aquí Me Quedo Initiative extends its reach into the larger arena of overall economic advancement.) - Work with national (Guatemalan) and international institutions, firms and businesses to enhance the economic possibilities of students in the various programs created.
At every step, projects will be assessed for their viability and sustainability, for their adherence to the overarching goals of the Foundation, and for their contribution to the empowerment of the local population.
Finally, the collective trajectory of these projects will be assembled as a template, replete with statistical information charting which components worked best. This template will be entitled “Aquí Me Quedo” and made available, free of charge, to any persons or institutions wishing to undertake similar projects. The Foundation’s goal is to support financially such projects, as well as to encourage other granting organizations to do the same.
¡Aquí Me Quedo!
The John T. Way Global Education Foundation, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization and your donation is deductible for income tax purposes as provided by law.
The John T. Way Global Education Foundation, Inc.
110 Buena Vista Avenue
Hawthorne, NJ 07506 U.S.A.
+01 (973) 949-3584
Atitlán Multicultural Academy
www.ama.edu.gt
John T. Way +502 5789-2386
