LIBERTY CHRISTIAN ACADEMY
Educational Excellence for Guatemalan Girls
Liberty Christian Academy is CEIBA VIDA’s primary outreach project in Guatemala. We are an all-girls school based in Pamoca — a village of San Raimundo, Guatemala.
We provide the most vulnerable girls in our area with quality Christian education, nutrition and counseling.
Our vision is to create a community of strong, independent, service-minded Christian women who are equipped with the education & skills needed to emerge out of abuse and poverty.
Our mission is to provide young girls an excellent and challenging educational experience — to help them know, love, and practice what is true and good, while preparing them to live purposefully and intelligently in service to God and their community.
We believe education is the ultimate catalyst for life change and therefore, must be approached holistically.
Through education, we can invest in our students’ lives by modeling Christ’s love for them, and instill an understanding that they are NOT defined by their circumstances — they are defined by their relationship with God.
Liberty Academy is a refuge for healing. We provide students with counseling, a safe place to grow & thrive and a community of people who love them.
ABOUT OUR GIRLS SCHOOL
Liberty Christian empowers native teachers to continually learn, improve & grow so they can reach their greatest potential while providing quality ministry & education to their students.
Malnourishment is prevalent in these communities. Our students are provided with snacks, a meal and vitamins everyday so they are nourished and can focus on their studies.
In 2022, we started a basic garden with goals to eventually grow it large enough to supplement our daily meals. This is also a great project for our students to experience hands-on learning in self-reliance.
Pictured above is Sarah Scott and her 4 children with the family of the student they sponsor. Sponsorship is such a blessing to both students and sponsors. Visiting Guatemala to meet the child you sponsor is not required but certainly welcomed & encouraged! ❤️
Because Guatemala is a primarily agrarian society, the school year begins in January and ends in October to accommodate harvest season. We began our first school year in January 2021 with two classes of kindergarteners (pre-kinder & kinder). In 2022, we doubled in size by adding a new grade level for our kindergarteners to move up into and welcomed a new class of pre-kindergarteners.
This is our continued growth plan — to add a new grade each year to grow with our students and welcome a new class of pre-kindergarteners. This allows us to grow at a pace that is consistent and sustainable. The most important thing we want to maintain in growth is quality — quality of education and ministry.
Our growth pace allows us to sustain this level of quality. For example, we can fundraise a realistic amount each year to increase staff so that our student to teacher ratio remains the same.
In the future, when Liberty Academy reaches a certain size, we have plans (God willing) to replicate the school in neighboring villages.
WHY A GIRLS SCHOOL?
In Guatemala, the average years of schooling per student is 4.1 years — only 3 year for Mayan indigenous women. 25.5% of the population is illiterate, with illiteracy rates up to more than 60% in the indigenous population.
Education is a huge need for both girls and boys.
We started with a girls school because there are more obstacles to overcome for girls on the journey to emerging out of abuse and poverty.
For example…
Guatemalan boys have a higher chance of receiving an education. If a family can’t afford to send all their children to school, the boys’ education is prioritized.
1 in 3 Guatemalan girls are married before the age of 18. The union is arranged by their family. Primary reasons are tradition and poverty. It means one less mouth to feed. Oftentimes an older man will marry a young girl and leave when he tires of her. Typically she is left with several children, no way to provide and is barely 18.
This is the case for many of the mothers who’s daughters are enrolled in Liberty Christian Academy. We have one mother who’s 18 and has 3 children. Another young mother has 10 children.
Young girls face the potential of being sold into sex trafficking. Poverty runs deep. Many desperate families unknowingly sell their daughters into the hands of sex traffickers under the guise that they will work in the United States as maids.
In 2020, after spending a year teaching at a partner school in Guatemala, CEIBA VIDA missionary, Molly Noonan saw and learned enough to know where God was pulling her next…
“God is leading me in the direction of opening a Christian school for girls here in Guatemala. I have never felt more affirmation that this is exactly what I am called to do. Over the past year, I have seen countless instances of human trafficking, sexual abuse, teen pregnancy, and high dropout rates of young girls. There were many days I came home from teaching and cried out to God to fix the oppression I saw so many young girls facing. I spent hours racking my brain for solutions, but had none.
Little did I realize, God was working out a plan all along. Here in Guatemala, many students leave school early to help support their family, take care of siblings, or get married. There is a crucial need for Christian education targeted specifically to girls. By opening a school, we hope to fight the disadvantages girls here face such as: limited schooling, early marriage, teen pregnancy, violence and chronic poverty.
Through Liberty Academy we desire to not only see many girls empowered to change their future, we pray that the narrative of Christ would become woven into their hearts so they know just how holy, valuable, and loved they are. I could not be more excited to see how God uses this school to grow His Kingdom!” - Molly Noonan (Liberty Academy Director)
If you are interested in visiting or volunteering with us, please click the contact us button below.
To partner with us financially, click the donate button below to become a monthly donor or give a one-time gift.
Click the video below to hear from school founder & proprietor, Molly Martínez.