An Aurora woman is spending a voluntourism week in Guatemala to help build a rural school from recycled plastic water bottles.
Christina “Chrissy” Wright is help build a school in Xeatzán Bajo, Guatemala, in Central America, June 10-16 in a Bottle School Building program sponsored by Hug It Forward, Inc., (HIF) of Flower Mound, Texas.
Under the program, volunteers are partners with empowered community members to build bottle schools out of plastic bottles stuffed with inorganic trash. Goals are to bring educational access, raised environmental consciousness and youth empowerment to rural and poverty-stricken communities
Wright, who coordinates Kane County’s eviction mediation program, raised $3,000 for travel, food, lodging, and guides. Congregants at Wesley United Methodist Church in Aurora have donated. Wright attended Wesley’s preschool 1984-1985. She said, ”I still remember our classroom.”
Wright said that donations received after her trip ends June 16 will go to HIF for future schools.
Partnerships provide each project with unskilled and skilled labor that allows building each bottle classroom for about $7,000, much less than traditional cinder-block construction.”
A Yorkville native, Wright attended Yorkville public schools and was graduated in 2000 from Yorkville High School. She attended Arizona State University and DePaul University where she received a bachelor’s degree in 2009 in Women’s and Gender Studies with a minor in LGBTQ Studies.
Before joining Kane County, she worked for Mutual Ground domestic violence shelter in Aurora for seven years as a sexual abuser prevention educator. She coordinates the Kane County Eviction Mediation program. She volunteers for Our Music, My Body, a sexual harassment awareness program in Chicago and has volunteered for many Aurora events, concerts, and other activities for 20 years.
Hug It Forward is a nonprofit that uses eco-bricks to build classrooms in Latin America. HIF has been partners with many well-known companies such as Google, Kind, and Lush Cosmetics. HIF has helped 100 communities in Guatemala and two in El Salvador construct more than 300 classrooms.
—Al Benson