Charles Albert possesses a strong work ethic.
The Durango man believes in leadership, working hard and the golden rule – “do to others what you would have them do to you.”
About 15 years ago, Albert put his beliefs to practice through education for underserved communities of Guatemala.
Founder of development company Bayfield Haga, his expertise is in building structures. But after a 2009 mission trip to Guatemala with his wife and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Albert realized he could be help underserved people build better lives.
He first developed a passion for humanitarian projects in the 1990s through his work with the High Noon Rotary Club, which facilitated health, education and clean water projects in Mexico and Honduras.
After spending six to eight months in Guatemala, Albert decided the most valuable impact he could make was through education in Senahu, a town in the north central department of Alta Verapaz.
“It was obvious they really, really needed some help in their public school,” he said.
He founded Escuela San Mateo in the U.S. in 2010 with the purpose of funding education projects in Indigenous Guatemalan communities. He started a partner nonprofit in Guatemala called Fundación San Mateo, which would perform administrative duties for school staff members.
In 2011, Albert’s first project was a nine-room public primary school building in Senahu. But it was also his first time dealing with the local school administration, which he found to be difficult because of corruption. He decided if he wanted to boost education in Senahu, he’d need another approach.
The community was 15,000 members strong, but it lacked a high school, Albert said. Working with the developer Willian Lopez, whom he met in earlier humanitarian trips to South America, he struck a deal with the school administration to share an existing school building.
It took about a year to finalize paperwork with the Guatemalan Ministerio de Educación, and the building needed a fair amount of maintenance and rebuilding. Escuela San Mateo paid for the supplies and materials for the work, and the community in Senahu provided the muscle.
The high school finally opened in January 2013.
It was a vocational school. It offered regular classes such as history and language arts in the mornings, plus specialty classes about auto mechanics, computers and agricultural practices in the afternoons, Albert said.
But the first school year got off to a slow start. About 20 to 30 students were enrolled and just five teachers were employed when classes began.
Fundación San Mateo grew in popularity in the coming years, however.
By 2017, 177 students were enrolled in the vocational high school and a junior high school the foundation adopted from another nonprofit in 2014, he said.
In 2020, Albert said he took Lopez up on an idea for a supplementary program for public primary school that they called WIKAN.
Some primary age children weren’t going to school, so the idea was to help families enroll their kids grades one to five in public school. Fundación San Mateo would provide supplemental programs about computer use and technology for the children.
Last year, 220 students were enrolled in the Fundación San Mateo high school in Senahu and about 140 students were participating in the WIKAN program, Albert said.
The foundation started an English training program in partnership with Mentor International, a nongovernmental organization that provides mentoring, job training and microloans to people, families and businesses in poverty-stricken places to turn the “cycle of poverty into a lineage of success,” according to the group’s website.
This year, the foundation is launching a nursing program at the vocational high school, Albert said. He is also planning to add additional classrooms to the high school building.
Someday, of course, he’d like to build more facilities and expand schools into other Guatemalan communities, he said.
Expertise in computer hardware and software, auto engineering and agriculture are good skills to have in Guatemala, as is a strong grasp of speaking English. English speakers can get higher paying jobs such as call centers, so the English language program is a boon to the students who take it, Albert said.
Albert said he remembers one boy who enrolled in the English program had a strong grasp on the language, picked it up quickly and just as quickly was hired at a Walmart in the city.
Albert said 60% to 70% of people aged 18 were unemployed because the area just doesn’t have diverse of jobs. Most workers are growing and harvesting coffee, which the high school also teaches because of its complicated process and prominence in the job market.
Another student took the vocational mechanics classes, became a car mechanic and paid his way through college to pursue his true dream of being a teacher, Albert said.
He said humanitarian work lets him see “the tremendous needs that the people have.”
“Why should we worry about (having a) $4 million house here when we could help some people out?” he said. “I get a better feeling about knowing there are some kids down there who are gonna have a way better life because we helped with our schools.”
He said giving people the opportunity to work toward an education is better than giving away free houses or appliances because people feel like they earn something when they complete their education.
“With education, it’s like we’re offering them an opportunity,” he said. “It’s work to come in and (go) to school.”
cburney@durangoherald.com
