What I learned from my trip to Guatemala: 3 ways PoP practices servant leadership
Nebaj, Guatemala
Sinuous. The road from Guatemala City to Nebaj, a city in the department of Quiché, is a sinuous 224 kilometers of white knuckle, Dramamine clutching twists and curves through the Sierra Madre mountains north of Lake Atitlán. 17 million Guatemalans live in this Pennsylvania-sized country, dotted with steep volcanoes (three of them active), vast rainforests and ancient Mayan sites. Squeezed into the backseat of the PoP pick-up truck, I began my second #PoPFieldTrip, now in my second month as CEO.
Jorge Bolom, PoP Guatemala Country Director, drove us along with a local’s knowledge of every blind corner. But, Jorge was no match for the camionetas, essentially Bluebird school buses with crazy paint jobs careening along at breakneck speeds. Orange, hot pink, lime green, reflective silver — these stalwarts of affordable intercity transport would pass us by on even the sharpest of corners, leaning precariously, seemingly with only half the tires touching pavement.
My goal for this trip was to meet our extraordinary team, visit schools, speak with teachers and see our Teacher Support literacy training workshops in action. What I didn’t know yet, between hairpins and switchbacks headed north, was that I would observe three examples of a practice I hold dear: servant leadership.
In fact, just hours before departure, I had shared with the PoP New York staff my belief that true leaders choose to serve the highest priorities of others first. Famous servant leaders from history include Mother Teresa, Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., and, one of my favorite historical heroes, Nelson Mandela.
The highest priority of the communities PoP serves is to upgrade the quality of education for their children.
Guatemala, like most developing economies, faces the challenge of distributing education to rural areas often accessible only by poor quality road infrastructure. Geographically isolated, these “last mile” communities are off the grid in every way, often without electricity, potable water, sanitation, cell service and transportation. Serving this need is the very essence of Adam Braun’s founding vision and is the galvanizing mission of our global staff.
After my trip to Guate, here are three (of the many) ways I proudly saw PoP embrace and practice the principles of servant leadership:
1. Local leadership leads to sustainability
The first example of servant leadership is evident at the very beginning of each new PoP school build project: local leadership empowerment via the Promise Committee. Rather than lead the project itself, PoP puts local leaders at the forefront — seeking first to serve the dreams of others like great servant leaders do.
This group of local parents and teachers, always four women and four men, spend countless hours confirming the need for a new school, selecting the site and engaging community support. These leaders comprise the first and most important ingredient in PoP school sustainability.
2. Community ownership creates accountability
Servant leadership is also evident in the legal conveyance of ownership for a PoP school. PoP is careful to stipulate that each edifice be built on community owned land, so that the community as a whole owns their school site. And, as I witnessed in an emotional school inauguration at Reposición Mocá with the amazing donor group from 2U, the keys to the school, and legal ownership of the building, are literally handed over to the Head Teacher as the penultimate step in the project (followed immediately by students swarming their new learning home).
3. Students learn best as teachers
Servant leadership is in abundance among the students of a PoP school. WASH Clubs consist of 10 or so gender balanced Guatemalan 4th — 6th grade students and are formed upon completion of school construction. To be chosen by the teachers for the hygiene club is a great honor, as the club leaders are responsible for the health and hygiene safety of the entire student body.
PoP staff serves the clubs with resources and initial training, but students train students on the basic message: washing their hands after using the latrine or before eating, wearing shoes to the bathroom. Songs, chants, dances are combined with meetings, tutorials and feedback. In one creative twist, students use glitter gel to visibly show how germs spread through handshaking. Since hygiene and health lead to higher attendance, more instructional hours and higher achievement gains, a PoP school’s success is placed in the hands of its own students from opening day.
My Guatemala trip convinced me that servant leadership is PoP’s secret sauce. In modeling servant leadership, PoP is demonstrating the humility that local leaders (parents, teachers, students, officials) really do know best and take the longest, most sustainable view.
By serving our communities to achieve their goals, PoP is redefining charity, empowering local leadership, conveying local ownership and, after 300 schools, proud to have each and every one successfully sustained.
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Check out #PoPFieldTrip on Instagram to follow our adventures in Guatemala, Ghana and Laos.
