PROBIGUA - Verein Schweiz

About us

Our association, based in Muttenz (near Basel), was founded on 1 July 1998 in Zürich to support and promote PROBIGUA (PROyecto BIbliotecas GUAtemala). This institution was founded by Rigoberto Zamora Charuc in Antigua Guatemala in 1992.

The objectives of PROBIGUA and our Probigua assosiation Switzerland are:
• To encourage alphabetisation in small country schools in Guatemala by supplying them with essential school materials such as exercise books, pencils and books.
• To set up libraries in small remote elementary schools.
• To create a fund to enable penniless children and teachers to further their education.
• To acquire and pass on second-hand PCs and musical instruments to teacher training colleges, large schools and libraries

Activities:
In Guatemala:
• Probigua Switzerland was founded in 1998 and started with the purchase of a second-hand US school bus which was refited as a mobile library with 2000 books,. Thanks to the local support of Rigoberto Zamora Charuc, the continuity of our engagement could be guaranteed.
• It has been realized that the government of Guatemala does only spend little money for education and even less for rural areas, ad does not provide for adequate buildings who deserve to be named schools. Therefore we extended the activity of our association to construct simple school buildings. The largest project, a school in Yepocapa serves as center for professional education and provides room for about 200 students.
- A further focal point lays in the education of teachers at the Maya Institute Socorro (Antigua) where capable young women are given the chance to be trained as school teachers.
- Then after we will provide school material to moneyless students.
- The language institute "Academia de Espagnol PROBIGUA" was founded in 1994 by Rigoberto Zamora Charuc in order to support his projects and is since then managed by him.
- Furthermore we setup several libraries, e.g. in Nahuala, 2 library buses and some computer schools. Thanks to the support of the Bill & Melinda Gates foundation, these investments have been possible.
- The activities of Probigua in Guatemala is regularly controlled on site by Max Umiker.
In Switzerland
• Our club is cooking lunch at the K5 centre at Gundeldingerstrasse 161 in Basel.
- We celebrate the national day of Guatemala
• Information events
• For teachers and students, we also provide hand on trining in Guatemala.

Max Umiker is the President of PROBIGUA-Verein Schweiz.

For other net participants we can offer an expert guidance through trained staff, give an expert opinion, procure expert information and establish new contacts in the field of our work.