Letter from Founder/N. McGirr W inter 2025

It’s the holiday season and Guatemala is crisp mountain air, the smell of pine needles carpeting the entrance to your house, the posadas where people walk around neighborhood singing and reenacting Mary and Joseph asking for lodging. The neighbors turn them down. But then arriving at the last house, designated as the posada, they ask all the singers to come in and give everyone hot chocolate and maybe cookies.

Christmas here is not a present-giving dominated holiday (just found out, this is no longer true!). The night of the 24th is a time for family and friends to get together to eat tamales at midnight. Twelve grapes, one for every month of the year, are eaten to insure good fortune. The night sky explodes with brilliantly colored fireworks, firecrackers like machine guns break out in a noisy, cathartic display the can last more than a half an hour.

Ah, the Holiday Newsletter, a time to recall some of the year’s highlights and to take the traditional look back into Fotokids historical files.

I have to say 2025 was a very good year! Under Evelyn’s leadership, the staff’s hard work and your support the project has gone forward in so many ways. We welcomed 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.

©Fotokids2025 1. First year students posing for Holiday greetings 2. Back when they started with us in November 2024, and had to care 6 weeks for eggs in order to be deemed responsible to be given a camera.

We also graduated two classes of students, one class that completed our 8 year curriculum in Santiago Atitlan, and another that completed our 5 year vocational course years in the City (see below). In Santiago Atitlán, graduate Sandra Chicom, began her gap year working as a teacher’s aide with Fotokids in order to receive her 2026 university scholarship. She joins Juan Quieju and Juan Ixbalán who are already studying Communications at the Universidad San Carlos.

We had exhibitions at the Panza Verde Gallery in Antigua, another in Chennai India,and in the Kravis Center for the Arts in West Palm Beach. Other exhibits are in the planning for 2026 and even 2027-Stay tuned!

Technologically, we have been able to replace many of our aging computers with your generous support and to resolve our Adobe licensing expenses problem, the staff discovered a photo editing program that is similar to Photoshop, but free to nonprofits.

A partnership with the photography and video equipment business Picacia, in Guatemala City, has been wonderful in many ways; giving free professional photo workshops to staff and advanced/vocational students, supporting us with video help, as well as, celebrating us with an exhibition in their Gallery this March. Their in-studio workshops taught and attended by Guatemalan pros this year spanned the gamut from; product photography, artificial intelligence for video, studio lighting for portraits, documentary photography & filmmaking to the very practical, camera equipment cleaning and maintenance.

Children at Lake Atitlán were inspired by visits from local photographers and the students visited graphic design studios. Two different week-long workshops with international photographers, one taught black and white photography with color emphasis and with the other workshop we had three photographers teach illustration, storytelling, studio work and LightRoom that enabled the students to acquire new skills and push forward on challenges.

In the latter workshop we included alternative photographic techniques in illustration for the upcoming book we are producing covering the 36 year conflict here in Guatemala. Below are some photos, cover collages from their notebooks and drawings.

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!