Casa Guatemala

About us

Casa Guatemala was established in 1977 and originally named Casa Canada, as the original founders were a Canadian couple who reached out to assist the malnourished, orphaned, and abused children during the brutal civil war. Casa Guatemala is a registered NGO and receives no government funding.

Our mission
Casa Guatemala seeks to provide a safe home, love and nurturing, proper health care, and an excellent education to the children of Guatemala who are abused, abandoned, malnourished, or living in extreme poverty.

Our vision
Casa Guatemala strives to equip the children in their care with the skills and education needed to become upstanding, empowered citizens in their community and to become fully self-sustained through the businesses that they run which provide financial support and meaningful job training for the older children.

Our work
• Education: Guiding children from pre-kindergarten through grade six. Our coursework focuses on language skills, math, health and hygiene classes, sustainable agriculture, and artistic activities.
• Summer School: Casa Guatemala is excited to now offer summer school opportunities for our children.
• Clinic: Our medical clinic provides free health care for the children of Casa Gautemala and the surrounding communities. We seek to help solve the medical problems that, without proper care, can derail the lives of both children and adults. All the supplies and medications we use to help our community are acquired through donations.
• Health care: Our clinic is staffed with trained volunteer nurses and doctors from around the world. Together they provide health care services that range from cuts and scrapes and common colds to rare tropical illnesses and chronic malnutrition.
• Health education: It's our mission to provide preventative health education that will ensure our community stays safe and healthy even after they leave our clinic.
• Nutrition: We provide a nutritional education to our children and the wider community. Every child that we help educate can take that foundation back to their families and their communities, helping to spread nutritional education through all of Guatemala.
• Agriculture: Our farm is both a learning tool where our children gain the agricultural skills needed in the outside world and a sustainable source of produce we use to build a balanced diet. In addition to the the wide variety of produce grown, we also raise pigs and other livestock, the surplus of which is sold in our store and restaurant to aid in the self-sufficiency of the project.
• Social enterprise: In striving to best prepare our children for independent living and also to provide another source of income for our organization, Casa Guatemala has created various self-sufficiency projects. These include Hotel Backpackers and the Butcher Shop "Granja de los Ninos" in Rio Dulce.

Heather Graham is the Executive Director of Casa Guatemala.

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.