Granados

October 2009 marked the completion of Hug It Forward’s first “Bottle School” project in Guatemala.  Zach Balle and Heenal Rajani of Hug It Forward led a group of 6 international volunteers to Granados, Guatemala where they joined Laura Kutner and Rebecca Wike, two Peace Corps volunteers who had been working with the community and government to prepare the site for the bottle school.The volunteers and a large number of children from the community collected thousands of plastic soda bottles from the streets and stuffed them full of plastic bags and other non-biodegradable materials to create “eco-bricks”.  Then they created a bottle wall by securing the bottles between layers of chicken wire.  Upon completion, two masons and a mass of children mixed and built cement walls around the eco bricks to reinforce the bottle wall.

After many months of hard work, the bottle school was completed and the kids could be proud of their new, eco-friendly, sustainable school that they had created.

Elementary School
Population (approximately): 857
Classrooms: 2
Bottle School: 1