Mission

The mission of Pura Vida is to facilitate the sharing of resources with communities in Guatemala in a meaningful, respectful, and long term way. Our primary focus is on providing educational opportunities for children in rural villages through scholarships, tutoring, and support of local schools. We encourage others to work with us as we give our time, knowledge, and resources to help poor rural communities attain a standard of living in which their children can thrive.

Our work is community based in that we focus on a few specific communities, rather than spreading our time and resources thinly across many. That way we get to know the people, gain their trust, and understand their needs.

We will focus on supporting and encouraging communities, helping them from the inside. We try to avoid creating dependencies; instead we focus on projects that "prime the pump", putting people in a position to better themselves and their community. Thus, our primary focus is on education. We find that this work also helps educate us as well. Exposure to poverty in the developing world can change the life of a volunteer.

Philosophy

Often when trying to help the poor, people want to give. That is a great impulse. The challenge, however, is to give in such a way that beneficiaries become more self-sufficient in the long term. At Pura Vida we are working to create programs that harness the giving impulse in a way that results in lasting change.

We have seen handouts sabotage meaningful development by creating dependency and damaging personal relationships.

We believe in giving a hand up, not a handout. It's easy to give money away, but as a development strategy that rarely results in lasting change, and can even cause substantial damage. Although it's difficult to create programs to lift families out of poverty, we believe that a thoughtful approach to development can benefit everyone.

That is why all of our major programs require that beneficiaries contribute something to the cause. In the case of a family receiving a new home, they must contribute labor to the construction. Scholarship students must keep their grades up, write at least 2 letters per year to their sponsor, and pay incidental educational expenses. Participants in the water purification program must contribute towards the replacement of the filter element.

As a result of working together with our beneficiaries, we have seen robust growth in our programs. We have seen young children turn into responsible, self-reliant adults. We have even hired prior scholarship students as local staff!