My Nonprofit Reviews

I first volunteered with Xela Aid in 2007, and have been back three additional times. I was a co-director on my most recent trip in July 2013. I've sponsored a Mayan child in the village since 2007, and have been pleased to see him grow into a wonderful, responsible, educated young man...though I still can't believe his schedule. Up at 6:30 every morning to climb the local mountains to collect firewood for his family (father disappeared years ago, mother ill, the only boy living at home with seven sisters), then to high school most of the day, then computer lab, then study, then field farm work, then helping out at home, then repeat that every day...and make time to work with the Xela Aid volunteers virtually every day they're in the village. And now his goal is to become an engineer.

What has inspired me about Xela Aid, in addition to my sponsored child, is its model for third world community development. If you simply give things away as many humanitarian organizations do, they are not valued and the process is not sustainable. Trying to solve one or two community development issues at a time, as most NGO's try to do, can adversely affect others. Educating children without creating local economic opportunities means the educated kids leave the village. Childhood vaccinations without family planning education can result in a population explosion that makes everything more difficult. Providing free health care with visiting foreign nationals can create a dependency, a sense of entitlement, and a lack of trust in local health care providers.

Xela Aid's model is to provide an integrated, adaptive strategy for addressing local community issues, with the intent of creating self-sustaining processes that eventually eliminate the need for Xela Aid. Some of our students are now city mayors, school principals, teachers, nurses, and business people, with more on the way. Our medical facilities are staffed with local health care professionals. Xela Aid's youth leadership program is transformational, and should be cloned in every developing community around the world. There is so much going on there that needs to be documented and shared with other organizations...and I see that as an important goal of Xela Aid going forward. This is a model that I believe will have broad applicability to developing communities everywhere.

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