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Ryan's Rays

Guatemala

Inclusive education, therapy and care for children with disabilities

In Guatemala, more than 50% of the population lives below the poverty line and half of all Guatemalan children under the age of 5 are malnourished. For people with scarce resources, access to quality healthcare and education is nearly impossible.

This struggle is magnified for those in Guatemala who live with a disability who often face discrimination due to misconceptions about disability in the country. According to a 2005 Guatemalan survey on disability, only 10% of children with disabilities concluded primary school, 77% did not have access to rehabilitation services and 53% could not read or write.

Exclusion from education not only has social and emotional impacts, but also leads to lower employment rates and a higher vulnerability to poverty. Given that over 10% of the population lives with a disability, the need for inclusive education and programming is urgent if the country is to meet the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.

With this in mind, Ryan’s Rays has partnered with Absolute Results Foundation and Hope of Life International, an organization who has been serving the needs of hundreds of thousands of Guatemalans for over 30 years. What began in 2020 with a single classroom at Hope of Life’s Liberty College in Zacapa has grown into our largest body of work – including a care centre for children living with disabilities that now carries Ryan’s name.

Since 2020, Ryan’s Rays has provided support for:

Students, teachers and visitors gathered in front of a mural of paper-chain children in the Special Needs Education classroom at Liberty CollegeThe new inclusive preschool building with a red roof and covered walkway, set against wooded hillsA bright preschool classroom with small tables, red chairs, a round alphabet rug and shelves of toysSix teachers standing behind six children in wheelchairs outside the preschool on its dedication dayA ribbon being cut beneath the Ryan’s Place sign, with children in wheelchairs at the front of the crowdVisitors standing on the covered porch of Ryan’s Place, an orange care centre with an accessible rampThe side of Ryan’s Place with the blue playground slides and ramps beside itA group standing in front of the Ryan’s Play Place mural of a green parrot and coloured trianglesThe covered inclusive playground with rubber flooring, artificial turf and a red spinner, decorated with balloonsA woman pushing a boy in a wheelchair down the playground’s accessible rampA man and children riding the red spinner in the playground while families look onTwo adaptive bucket swings, one red and one blue, in front of the Ryan’s Play Place muralVolunteers rolling yellow paint onto the outside wall of Darwin’s new homeDarwin’s family and the Ryan’s Rays team cutting a red, white and blue ribbon at the front door of the new homeDarwin’s mother and five children seated around a dining table inside the new homeDarwin, his mother and siblings standing on the front step of their finished home