Letter from Founder/N. McGirr Spring 2025

It seems to have happened so quickly, but Easter season is once again upon us. Frenzied mobs of Fotokids will be out taking literally thousands of photographs of processions, streets draped in colorful deeply hued sawdust carpets, little boys posing as the12 apostles with conical flowered headdresses and the traditional participation of Maximon, the Mayan god. Semana Santa is the season of wonderful, creative imagery!

Easter in Santiago Atitlan, the Indigenous village where we have one of our schools, is permeated with magic realism, where the traditional Catholic and old Mayan religion intermingle.

First, the good news!

I hope you had a chance to open the staff’s monthly update with the photos of the kids practicing their skills. Every month the staff will send out an update, mainly pictorial (not much reading required unlike this newsletter).

The Exhibit in Chennai India, “What makes me Click” opened in late January with children’s photographs from Cambodia, Turkey, Singapore, Gaza, London, Thessaloniki Greece, Brussels, New York City, South Africa and of course India. The exhibition, designed by The Architecture Story, was curated by the CPB Foundation and the Children’s Photography Archive based in the United Kingdom

The exhibit will close later this month and, by all accounts, is a rousing success and attended by thousands!

Next year will be our 35th anniversary. It may seem like we just celebrated our 30th, but the pandemic interceded to slow our exhibition plans. I won’t tell you yet what we propose to do in celebration, but will mention that we do have a planned exhibit at Lab Gallery, part of SUNY’s SEJI (Social and Environmental Justice Institute), mid-March till early May of 2026.

This May I will be going to London to meet with our UK supporters and maybe drum up interest in an exhibition. We have exhibited at least four times in the UK in the past. I will also be giving a presentation at Frontline, the London press Club, date TBD.

Since the December newsletter, we marked the holidays with a Christmas distribution of turkeys and rice to each child’s family– 90 turkeys in all and 5 pounds of rice to each family.
We also graduated two classes of students, one that had been with us for 8 years in Santiago Atitlan, and another that had been with us for 5 years in the City.

In Santiago Atitlán, Sandra Chicom, begins her gap year working as a teacher’s aide with Fotokids to receive her 2026 university scholarship. She joins Juan Quieju and Juan Ixbalán who are already studying Communications at the national university, Universidad San Carlos.

We have three new groups, welcoming 65 additional students. This expansion brings our enrollment to 116 students for the year 2025, with 79 students in Santiago and 37 in Guatemala City.

Sandra Chichom frames a photo of teacher Juan Quieju holding a camera oscura the staff constructed as part of their History of Photography unit for the new students.

This year during Holy Week we have a professional photographer visiting who will be teaching students advanced techniques in the use of selected color in black and white photographs. We are so fortunate to have photographers come and expose the students to exciting new approaches in imagery.

Melissa Guerrero joins the team as our photography teacher in Florida with public school children grades 4 through 6. Melissa is a professional photographer working and teaching in the southern Florida area and we are very lucky to have found her.

In February, she visited Guatemala to observe the program, visiting classes, and meeting with staff in both the City and Santiago Atitlan. The program in Florida is an 8 week series of workshops, which focuses on children expressing their identity; growing up in the United States while at the same time valuing their cultural heritage.

In the last newsletter, I did promise to speak about the effects here in Guatemala of deportation from the U.S. So, the deal is this; President Bernardo Arévalo, in a bilateral, press conference with visiting Secretary of State Marco Rubio, announced “We have agreed to increase by 40% the number of flights of deportees, both returnees with nationals as well as to accept 24,000 deportees of other nationalities who will be repatriated to their own countries.” I’m not sure how that will work?

U.S. Air Force planes, full of handcuffed migrants have flown into Guatemala almost daily, bringing the total of those deported from January to mid-February to 5,747. They have been met by government employees hoping to reintegrate them into the economy. The obstacles to reintegration are many. Migrants left the country for a number of reasons, including; there were no jobs here, drought due to climate change affecting agriculture, and the ongoing threat of gangs and organized crime. In the rural areas it is common for poor people to sign over their house or land title to the smugglers as collateral on the $18,000 needed to pay the coyotes which means that deportees are homeless when they return. In addition, the depressed labor market offers little chance of finding a job, unless they have mastered English.

Here is what I find a crucial statistic: Guatemalans working in the U.S. last year sent back to Guatemala, almost $22 billion dollars. Guatemala’s total exports in 2024 amounted to a little over US $12 billion, while its total imports reached U.S. $26.52 billion, resulting in a negative trade balance of approximately $14 billion; with the U.S. being its primary export and import partner. The $22 billion being sent back to families in Guatemala helped make up that deficit.

If that money no longer comes from workers sending money home to Guatemala from the U.S., I’m afraid it is troubled times ahead.

Fotokids is solid. We do not get any financing from U.S. government sources. You, our supporters, have so generously, and loyally given us the backing we need to move forward. I will say it again, we have the most incredible supporters and without you, we couldn’t exist, so a heartfelt thank you to each of you!

You are providing the educational and vocational skills that allow young people here in Guatemala to land jobs and that eliminates the need for them to leave their country.

As an example, Abdías Noe Perez, who grew up in a rough barrio on the outskirts of Guatemala City.

Just a few things while I’m at it about the education system, last year the Guatemalan high school attendance rate nationwide dropped 13.52%. But our kids are staying in school. We monitor attendance, grades, and offer tutoring and mentoring. We have meetings with the mothers to help them stay on top of their children’s education. It works, because we work with the families for the 8 years their kids are in the program. We know when families are in crisis, have medical issues, have lost jobs, or been threatened by gangs. Knowing that, we can offer support with food baskets, helping with student’s medical bills, and counseling.

In other bittersweet news, we have had two staff leave this year. Linda Morales left to spread her wings and use her skills to discover new horizons. And skills she has!

A little girl 9 years old who lived near the bus terminal, she finished the university, integrating her love of writing with a degree in literature. She taught classes at Fotokids from the age of 12, presented at the Houston FotoFest, became our Educational Director, went to Uganda to document the thousands of displaced from the atrocities wrought by the child soldiers for World Emergency Relief. Linda traveled to Fotokids exhibitions in New York and London and had her own exhibit in Guatemala.

While working at Fotokids, she developed a photo business with national and international clients, documenting the production of a television series, and photographing an archeological expedition sponsored by National Geographic. I am sad to see her leave but happy she is taking to the sky and realizing another aspect of her potential.

Mely, who was with us as our cook and housekeeper, retired after more than 20 years serving up personal warmth and hot lunches to the thousands of kids attending Fotokids classes. Plagued by diabetes, Mely struggled on until the end of last year when it became way too difficult to work. She will be remembered with much fondness by both myself and the children.

The Fotokids’ crew that photographed Daniela Andrade’s 750 km run from the jungle to the ocean exhibited their work at the Cooperación Española this past week. The focus of the run was to bring attention to the urgency that exists in securing a safe and sufficient water supply.

The Design4 Kids workshop planned for June has been moved to the second week in November (10th-15th). Please consider bringing your talents to this week-long workshop (we help you make a teaching plan if you want). Spanish helpful but we do have translators. We can use designers, photographers, copywriters and artists!

Let us know at info@fotokids.org

We continue to provide more meals for the current 116 kids, as malnutrition still looms here in Guatemala, especially in the areas where we work. Kids don’t get a chance to eat meat, often it’s just beans and tortillas, so our lunches include meat, carbs and a green vegetable.

We are of course worried about inflation and tariffs in today’s world. If you want to help out, anything you can give, would be great!

May 2nd is World Giving Day and it is fast approaching! Can you help?

Let’s keep this ball rolling! There are a lot of positive activities happening that you can contribute to, and have the satisfaction that it’s something that actually works.

We have a dollar for dollar match leading up to and including May 2nd for the first $15,000. You can get your donation in early if you want.

If you are sending in a check for that reason before May 2nd, let us know at info@fotokids.org

If I see it in our PayPal account, no need to message, we have it!

The Fotokids Board is looking for a few more good board members.

If interested please contact Board President Daniel Huecker at danielhuecker@gmail.com

How you can Help!

Donate Online with PayPal (credit cards accepted)
or make checks out to FOTOKIDS

Address
Fotokids/Walt Trask,
2240 S Palm Canyon Drive, #16,
Palm Springs CA 92264

Join our Fotokids Supporters page on FB see more photos
and vote for your favorites during our competitions.

You know that Fotokids is effective; you have demonstrated this repeatedly with your very generous support, but we have to get the news out to other people and expand our base.

Always feel free to forward the newsletters to others and remember to promote Fotokids by weaving it into any conversation you may have.

And Now, because you have been as always very patient, here they are, THE PHOTOS! They are from the first of the year, seen through their eyes…