Our Headquarters
We are based in Tactic, Alta Verapaz, a town of about 15,000 in a county (municipio) of 38,000. Only about a third of the population are native Spanish speakers. Poqomchi’ predominates, but there are also many Q’eqchi’ speakers.
The Tactic team set up a modest storefront facility in April 2023. Thanks to good management, they were able to move to a larger, more visible facility near a school in November 2023. Our paid staff members, Oscar Buc and Milsan Quej, work enthusiastically at the facility half time each.
Our services
✓ Free walk-in computer lab
✓ Laptop rental program
✓ Short computer courses
Byron Cap
Guatemala Director
Guatemala Director Byron Cap grew up in Chialli, one of several rural villages visible on the mountainsides above Tactic. Byron attended primary school in Chialli, but he had to walk down the mountain to Tactic every day to attend middle school. He and his team understand well what local students need and how to deploy Chaptops’ resources to help them finish school. (Byron also mentors ten local students for the Guatemalan Student Support Group.) Byron studied business administration at Wake Tech Community College and helps manage his family’s coffee business, so he knows how to deploy resources effectively.
Here are some of the great things that we’ve helped our supporters do in Tactic:
Computer Lab
We created a free walk-in computer lab with 10 computers available to students for schoolwork. Local “internet cafés” charge about $0.50 per hour of access. Our center also provides printing at half the going rate. The internet cafés require students to purchase an hour of access before they can print. If a student works 20 hours per month and prints 100 pages, they can save $16. For perspective, this is 6% of the legal monthly minimum of wage (PPP$820.)
Rental Program
A laptop rental program allows students to take a laptop home for schoolwork. This is a real boon for village students, who save time and money for a bus rides and fees at commercial internet stores while having access to a computer 24/7. A month’s rental fee is Q60 or PPP$15., and shorter terms are available. Currently, 93 laptops are rented out. Students can also rent projectors.
Computer Courses
We are offering short courses in our new classroom space. We got started with a three-week-long program for ten primary-aged children during their Christmas break. They learned how turn to on a computer, how to create a Word document, how to use a browser and search the Web, and how to make simple drawings. All but one received a perfect score on the evaluation conducted on the last day!
We’re on a roll!
Future Academy
We hope to receive Ministry of Education approval to offer required courses for middle school students soon. The government understands the importance of computer literacy and requires a certificate of computer competency for middle-school graduation. But, without computers, the training is left to private, typically commercial, training institutes. We will offer the training at a more affordable cost for needy students.
Our Off-line Library
We have created Biblioteca Chaptops for off-line access to reference materials. Using Kiwix technology and resources collected by Mundo Posible, we are filling $6 USB flash drives with 60Gb of educational materials like Spanish Wikipedia, Spanish Khan Academy, Wikipedia in Simple English, and local materials provided by the Ministry of Education. We now install the library on all new donations and upgrade when possible. This is useful not only where there is no Internet access, but also where students pay to access the internet through a mobile hotspot.