Jeff Pryor and Alex Mitchell, members of JABOR’s core team, have made it a habit to contribute to communities where they’ve lived and traveled. Over the past decade, they’ve completed a number of projects around Central America and the Caribbean. This year, they worked to support school children on the island of Río Azúcar in the Guna Yala comarca (formerly known as the San Blas region) of Panama. The dollars they raised for this and other projects were matched one-to-one by the JABOR mini-grants fund, turning the $2500 raised by Jeff and Alex into $5000 for the Guna Yala community!

Río Azúcar is home to approximately 400 people, about half of whom are young children. This project was focused specifically on rebuilding the school cafeteria for children aged three to five. The roof of their cafeteria had caved in, making it impossible for them to eat inside. During the long rainy season (they say “rain was invented in Panama”), the floor was a big mud pit, and the remaining roof was not safe to sit under. The cafeteria also needed a new cooking stove, plates, glasses, and spoons for the children to eat with. In this way, JABOR was able to provide for the most basic of needs for this indigenous island population.

The indigenous Guna people have managed to maintain independence for centuries. It is a matriarchal society, where decisions are made in communal fashion. Foreign ownership of land is prohibited, and the Guna have virtually no industry apart from selling coconuts. There are no hotels, and very few shops or restaurants. Rather, the people survive on seafood, what they find or grow in the rainforest, and food that is brought in from the mainland. By managing their own territory, the Guna have been able to preserve their culture and independence, and the beautiful nature that surrounds them.

The Guna people live a very simple life, which in so many ways is spectacularly beautiful, but also has its challenges. One of their main challenges is that some of their islands are shrinking due to climate change. Through no fault of their own, much of their territory is predicted to be uninhabitable by the end of the century, or sooner. One island population has already been relocated to the mainland. Because of this, it is imperative now that the local children learn basic skills - that they can process simple math and are literate in Spanish, for example, which many of their elders are not.

Rebuilding their school building and providing eating utensils and a stove for the youngsters in Río Azúcar was a terrific way to give back to this most wonderful community!