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Our History

In 1999 our founder, Beth Neville Evans, visited San Mateo Ixtatán for the first time on behalf of a North American nonprofit organization attempting to help a resident of the town with a life-threatening medical condition.

She discovered a town that was a microcosm, high in the Guatemalan mountains where the residents spoke a unique language, Chuj. This language is the predominate tongue used by approximately 64,000 Mayans, the majority of them residing in San Mateo Ixtatán. As one of the many indigenous groups of Mayans in Guatemala, these people find themselves among the lowest on the socio-economic ladder, lacking in many basic services and with few opportunities to improve their situation. This was starkly evidenced by the lack of any high school education facility in the entire region.

As a result of her visit and ongoing conversations with the community leaders in San Mateo Ixtatán, Beth Neville created the Ixtatán Foundation, a 501(c) 3 nonprofit. Ixtatán Foundation, Inc. was incorporated in January of 2001, with the express goal of creating the first high school in the town. The school, called Seeds of Wisdom, or Yinhatil Nab’en in Chuj, opened its doors in January 2005 with 11 students in high school and 21 in middle school and saw its first graduating class three years later when nine students received high school diplomas.

Initially based solely out of Charlottesville, Virginia, Ixtatán Foundation added a Guatemalan Office in mid-2012 under the stewardship of Executive Director, Elias Alonzo, who had won a scholarship from the Foundation to attend Toccoa Falls College in Georgia from 2005 to 2008.

While the formation of the high school was the impetus for the formation of Ixtatán Foundation, overall improved access to quality education is the primary and ultimate goal. In 2012 the curriculum was adapted to reflect Project Based Learning philosophy, which provides student-led, hands-on, and community-oriented projects as a structure for learning core subjects while developing leadership skills. The school also oversees a variety of income-generating enterprises which provide real world experience for its students.

In the years since Ixtatán Foundation’s inception, we continue to believe that access to quality education is the fundamental key to development according to the economic and social context of a community. We now aspire to share this philosophy and additional community development programs with more communities to help enhance the lives of people in the greater Huehuetenango region.