This handmade wooden rose seal cross was crafted by at-risk youth in Guatemala City. The cross is about 12" tall and ready to hang.

Only A Child's work with disadvantaged youth in Guatemala seeks to break the cycle of chronic economic need while responding to its ramifications: hunger, malnutrition and disease; hopelessness and despair; delinquency and violent crime. We recognize and respond to critical social concerns in present day Guatemala by offering educational resources and opportunities for betterment to young lives previously denied them.

For 27 years, Only A Child (OAC) has touched hundreds of young lives. At the time of its inception in 1994, OAC worked with homeless children in Guatemala City. Our initial years were spent in outreach, sharing the streets these children called home. It was at their urging that we opened a shelter in February of 2000. Before long we also launched a carpentry shop and organized a back-to-school program to prepare our youths to fulfill their desire to leave the streets behind. Several years ago, however, the surge in migration - specifically large numbers of young people leaving their homeland in search of opportunity and a better future - compelled us to rethink our mission.

Today OAC's primary objective is to provide secondary and university level education to youths coming from predominantly rural areas and impoverished backgrounds. Given their previous circumstances, they've much to overcome. The communities from which they come are isolated and lacking in resources and, as a result, limited in terms of possibility and scope. They offer few options for education and employment. Such areas all but guarantee that their residents will be channeled into lives mirroring those of the generations which preceded them. Our goal is that, upon completing their studies, our graduates will return to their neighborhoods to serve as an example to other young men and women, while inspiring a level of expectation and hope uncommon to the communities from which they come.