My Nonprofit Reviews

The Maya Educational Foundation (MEF) provides me with the means by which I can give back to a people and a country that have been central in my life. I first went to Guatemala as a volunteer and returned as an anthropologist working in a Maya community in the central highlands. I owe much to the many Guatemalans I've met and so a key question has been: How to give back? How to help make a difference in the lives of people and the communities in which they live? For me, education is key. Maya in Guatemala (as well as Mexico and Belize) are sorely underrepresented as students in high schools and universities and in professional jobs at local, regional, and national levels. Providing bright Maya students an education is truly life-changing, and MEF students have graduated to work as doctors, agronomists, dentists, business people, nutritionists, lawyers, teachers, and more. I have served on the MEF board and have also met a number of the FEPMaya university scholarship students while volunteering for MEF's English Language Program. The MEF programs and the students they serve are wonderful. I enthusiastically support them and encourage friends to do so, too.