As migration from Central America surges, a school funded by the U.S. government in a Guatemalan village aims to give youth the job skills to be successful in their own country. Will it keep them from heading north?
In a mountain village where every week people leave for the United States, the school broadcasts its message in its name: el Centro Quédate — the Stay Here Center.
A person walks on the street near the Centro Quédate, or Stay Here Center, in Santa Maria Visitacion, Guatemala. Students there learn skills intended to encourage them to stay in Guatemala rather than migrate to the United States. President Trump said last month he would cancel aid to those three countries — to punish them, he said, for not doing enough to stop migration.
Still, the school serves as a tiny flicker of hope in Santa Maria Visitacion, where for decades migration was taken as a granted, the only way out of grinding poverty. Now teenagers have at least the impression of a choice. Maybe they could open a barber shop. Maybe they could repair computers or work with tourists.The students want to stay in Guatemala, if they can. In this village, like many in Central America, migration is a last resort.
The conversations happen everywhere — in the town hall, in schools, on the ancient American school buses that carry Guatemalans from one village to the next.It’s a town where migration is part of the fabric of daily life — a journey most everyone has tried or at least considered.“We know everyone wants to leave this place,” said Marcos Ixtamer, the school’s director. “That’s why we’re here.”
Michael Clemens, a fellow at the Center for Global Development, says the approach “gets it backward.”In much of the developing world, money sent home by family and friends abroad provides a crucial economic foundation. In Guatemala, these remittances account for more than 11 percent of GDP. “These are small towns,” Ixtamer said. “It’s not hard for us to find kids who are getting ready to leave or who are thinking about it.”
On a recent Tuesday, he walked along a highway in a tiny village called Patzij, a smattering of small homes connected by a narrow dirt path. Subsistence farming is pretty much the only job here. Pérez pulled out a photocopy of the Stay Here Center’s recruitment survey. Marroquín sat on the floor.“She hasn’t tried to go to the United States, but she wants to, right?” he asked.“She knows where her dad is?”Pérez took notes. He knew that a child with a father in the United States is more likely to try to migrate at some point.“She says she going to go,” Marroquín said. “I tell her no.
Elena Guarcha Ixtos is shown after speaking with Pérez about the center’s mission. One of her sons has already made the journey north. Elena said Isaías was thinking about heading north.Did Elena think the Stay Here Center would help keep Isaías here?“My son wants to stay here, but the situation is forcing him to leave,” she said. “He wants to learn to cut hair, but to do that he’s going to need materials. We don’t have the resources to buy them.
USAID says it does not keep track of the center’s results — the federal agency relies on the International Organization for Migration for oversight. IOM says it has not tracked the school’s impact on local migration trends. “I always ask them why they want to learn English and what use do they have for it,” Quintana said. “They say if I go to the United States, I would like to communicate.”Every hand went up.“If that’s the only option, then that’s fine,” Abdiel Dionisio said.Small fix for a big problem Moises Ventura was trying his best to learn how to cut hair.
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