A brief History

Las Manos de Christine was founded in 2006 by the Hand family from Las Cruces, New Mexico, in an effort to honor their mother, Christine, a lifelong educator.  Las Manos de Christine, literally meaning the Hands of Christine, is led by eldest son, Bryant Hand, an ex-pat educator and language school owner based in Guatemala.  Las Manos was established as a means of doing good with the skills and information he'd attained through his years in ESL (English as a Second Language) education and connections made during years of running language schools locally.  The NGO will begin its third project in the coming year.

In the beginning, we joined up with another NGO, Camino Seguro (Safe Passage), to provide assistance to the children living in and around the Guatemala City landfill.  Over the next three years, the children of Camino Seguro grew to being competitive on the English section of the national exam.  Additionally, Camino Seguro's English Program gained great support, so much so that the organization now has the wherewithal to provide its own professional English staff.  With Camino Seguro having outgrown the need for our immediate presence, Bryant pledged to act as a trainer and adviser to the incoming classes of Camino English teachers, and Las Manos de Christine itself has been fazed out of Camino Seguro's project.  In our books, that's success.

Las Manos's current project is in Aldea El Hato, a small village in the mountains above Antigua, and is in collaboration with the public school and a neighboring guesthouse, Earth Lodge.  In truth, Bryant has great rapport with the owners/operators of Earth Lodge, "Bri" Havey and "Drew" Shankman, who have spent the past several years sponsoring the school, assisting them in acquiring every thing from breakfast fare to a computer lab.  Las Manos has been working with the local school since April 2010 and has introduced a great English program, instigated weekly art activities, and developed strong relationships with the El Hato villagers.