Grants to Schools and Assistance to Other Organizations

While our own programs absorb most of our computer supply, in some cases, Chaptops makes computer grants directly to schools. Thousands of schools need computers in Guatemala. We consider requests from schools that propose an innovative use with a strong preference for schools in the Department of Alta Verapaz (Cobán area).

Seacacar School

Instituto Básico Comunitario Seacacar offers the only accessible middle school program for the 14 villages in the isolated valley of the Río Sauce, which flows south from the mountains into Lake Izabal.  The school currently meets in the facilities of an ecolodge run by the local non-profit community association for the benefit of the school and other development and conservation projects.  The lodge is situated in a dramatic canyon near the mouth of the river.  Via a repeater built by Guatemala Village Health, the Internet arrived in Seacacar just weeks after Chaptops computers.   The laptops are being used by middle school students as well as in a library provided by the nonprofit Books to Brilliance. The library provides enrichment programs for children from the two local government primary schools.

Four new boarding students and their matron at the middle school in Seacacar in the canyon of the Rio Sauce near El Estor, Guatemala.

Centro Educativo Gran Betania

The computer lab with Chaptops computers at the Catholic mission school in San Benito Lachuá.

San Benito Lachuá, Alta Verapaz is located 3 ½ hours north of Tactic near the Lake Lachuá National Park and the Mexican border.  In collaboration with Asociación de Guatemaltecos Unidos de Carolina del Norte (Guatemalans United of North Carolina), Chaptops placed ten laptops to expand the computer classroom at Centro Educativo Betania, a community middle and high school of XXX students.

Donate to Provide Computers to More Schools

We’re about moving computers to Guatemala, and within our time constraints, we try to help other organizations acquire and ship computers.  We can advise on the suitable software packages and hardware upgrades.  Under some circumstances, our staff in Tactic may be able service computers.

Guatemala Village Health was able to obtain a corporate donation of 40 laptops for seven primary schools in its service area in the isolated Río Sauce basin north of El Estor.  Since the donors was willing to ship to any US address, we received the donation at our NC office and used our special sauce to ship them for less than $10, solving a puzzle for GVH and saving them hundreds of dollars.

TEACH planned to purchase computers for a primary school in the village of Tameja, which is reachable only by boat.  We were able to rent computers to TEACH for three months to give them some breathing room to make a careful purchase decision.

If your NGO or other organization wants to ship computers to Guatemala, we have the following basic advice:

  • Seek donations from companies, especially IT asset disposition companies. Computer disposal is an expense; donation is a writeoff. Corporate computers have recently come off an employee’s desk. Donations to neighborhood and church drives may have been in closets for years.
  • The nonprofit Kramden Institute collects donations, refurbishes them, and distributes them free to school kids in North Carolina. They also sell to nonprofits. They give a six-month warranty, which is useless in Guatemala but does bespeak confidence in their process. The Kramden Institute is near our North Carolina office. We will not broker a sale with Kramden, but we may be able to pick up and ship at your expense. There may be a similar refurbisher near you.
  • Recommended hardware configuration: i5 processor, 8Gb memory, 256Gb SSD. This is likely the minimum configuration you will receive from a company. If you receive computers with 2.5″ HDDs, replace them with cheap 256Gb SSDs for a big speed boost. They cost around $20.
  • Recommended software configuration: Windows 10 or 11, SpanishEdition; LibreOffice, a free open-source Microsoft Office lookalike; and Biblioteca Chaptops, our offline reference materials. We can supply a UBS drive that can be freely duplicated.
  • Use a shipper that caters to your local Guatemalan community. There are many around the US. They ship by volume in standard-sized cartons over the sea route in a month.
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