Matt Paneitz is the Executive Director of Long Way Home, an organization which works on sustainable education and community transformation.

Episode Summary:

01.05 Matt tells us about his role and how he became interested in working with rural communities

01.48 What is Long Way Home?

03.10 What is the philosophy behind the work of the organization?

05.20 How has the use of trash as a building material impacted the health of the community?

07.00 How did they decide to make rubbish part of the school tuition fee?

07.55 What is the context of San Juan Compalapa?

09.50 What are the challenges for education in this region?

12.08 How has the availability of secondary education impacted the community?

13.50 What were the challenges when they were initially setting up the school?

16.03 How did they build relationships with the community?

17.50 Who is part of the team of Long Way Home?

19.30 How has indigenous culture been included in the work they do?

20.46 What is the school campus like?

24.40 What resources are available to support others to do something similar?

25.35 What have been some of the most meaninful successes?

27.40 What change would you like to see in rural development and sustainability?

Key Messages:

The work of Long Way Home started in San Juan Comalapa, a Maya Kaqchikel (indigenous) community in Guatemala.

Long Way Home is a non-profit organization which is integrating sustainable rural development, education and addressing poverty.

Built the first city park and they wanted to charge an entry fee, the entrance fee became a plastic bottle filled with trash.

There was no system for trash management, there was nowhere to put it, so they decided to use trash as a building material.

At their school the tuition fee is one plastic bottle filled with trash. One family will send 3 or 4 children to the school and they will clean up the trash in their environment. This then helps to clean the neighbourhood.

They were experimenting with alternative material such as trash to bring down the cost of building materials.

San Juan Comalapa is in the western highland of Guatemala, the area has volcanoes, it is 60km west of Guatemala city. The people are mostly farmers, growing maize.

They opened the first high school in the town. There is a lack of money going into education. Not all of the children had a space in public school. Only 30% of children were enrolling in middle school as there is 87% unemployment locally.

The availability of a secondary school with low tuition fees enabled more young women to go to school. This is also improving their chances of going to university. Members of the community are not becoming professionals with better employment opportunities.

There were many obstacles to building the school. It was important to know the right people in the community who could help.

Building relationships and trust was important, it meant never asking others to do something they would not do themselves.

The school includes a Kaqchikel class where they learn about their language and culture.

The school campus uses a variety of materials, they experimented with different building methods including tyres, earth bags, cob, and bamboo. There are 22 different buildings which have integrated conventional and unconventional materials.

They used this experience to build further infrastructure with the wider community.

They have shared their experiences with other organizations around the world. They have also shared their expertise in building with alternative materials and documented the process to create a profile for the different types of buildings.

Website: https://lwhome.org/

YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@LongWayHomeOrg

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