Guatemala Scholarship Fund
The Guatemala Scholarship Organization (also known as the seed project) is a scholarship organization that supports young Maya and enables them to receive vocational training.
The project aims to enable gifted, poor young people in Guatemala , especially those from the Maya population, to attend school and vocational training. The scholarship holders are to be supported through additional educational events with a qualified educational program. Ideally, this strengthens their Mayan identity and enables them to take on socio-political responsibility. In addition to school-based learning criteria, Christian and social commitment and responsibility are taken into account when selecting applicants .
The project aims to promote personalities with Christian and social commitment who stand up for peaceful change in Guatemala and who can participate as experts in the development of their country. Scholarship holders who have completed a degree should use their knowledge as "agentes de cambio" (for example, "carriers of change") in the country itself.
Initiated in 1994, the project in Guatemala was led by the German journalist Maria-Christine Zauzich , who drowned on the Guatemalan Pacific coast in August 2009. The seed grain project is supported in Germany by the registered association seed grain eV. The donations are received on the German association account and are transferred to Guatemala depending on the budget. The Guatemalan board of directors of the Ija'tz project (Ija'tz means seed in the Mayan language Kaqchikel) is in regular contact with the German board. In Guatemala, the fellowship is run by a German project manager and five Guatemalan employees.
