Nuestros Ahijados (Guatemala)

Walking onto the grounds of Nuestros Ahijados, or God’s Child Project as it is known in the US, one finds well manicured lawns, stone buildings surrounded by lush trees, and most of all, tranquility. “We have had people see the place and turn around and walk out because they thought it was too nice looking and a charity shouldn’t be like that, but it’s not like that, it’s about giving the people human dignity,” said Patrick Atkinson, founder of the program.
Patrick Atkinson is a prime example of how with a lot of hard work and a great vision, one person can help thousands.

Part of what makes Atkinson so inspiring is the fact that he never imagined his life would turn out the way it has. He started by going to Guatemala in 1983 to work on a farm. “I didn’t speak a word of Spanish and I thought I was going down for six months to drive a tractor and pick coffee.” It was during the civil war and a group of nuns had purchased some land and thought having an international presence would help deter an attack on the refugees who were staying on the land.

He worked in an orphanage with 35 children on the land. What started small has grown to a nonprofit that has branches in Guatemala, the United States, India, El Salvador and Malawi. In Guatemala alone, he has helped 4,000 children and 8,700 women, mostly single mothers, change their lives and learn to dream.

God’s Child Project, also known as Nuestros Ahijados, is based in Bismarck, North Dakota, and has its main branch in Antigua, Guatemala. It has proved to be a successful nonprofit even through these difficult economic times because of this. Atkinson takes no salary for himself (he does for business purposes but then donates it back to the program). Most of his employees are in Guatemala and work for stipends. Everything is far more cost effective being based in a developing country. Because the charity doesn’t pay six-figure salaries to its executive and puts almost no money to a marketing or press budget, they are able to maximize their funds with 93 cents on every dollar going directly to the children the project funds. This in turn, makes more people want to donate to the project when they see how efficient it all is.

“There are a lot of people with a lot of money willing to donate, but they don’t want their money to go to waste, they worked hard for it. They often come down and see the program and how it works and then become our biggest donor,” said Atkinson.

Almost all the funds are raised by a direct mailer. “Our direct mailer has been absurdly over successful,” said Charles Moore, Director of Operations for the Institute for Trafficked Exploited and Missing, a branch of the nonprofit. “We don’t buy mailing lists. Everyone that we mail to has had some sort of exposure to the project and said that they want to help. In some way or another, every donor has connected with us as people, so that is probably why it has been so successful.”

It wasn’t always so easy. There were several times when the project almost had to be shut down, but it was only by what looked like a miracle in the last minute that kept it going. At the beginning, Atkinson would sometimes make what he calls, “Hamburger Soup” to feed the children of the project. “I would go to fast food restaurants, buy one or two hamburgers and leave the restaurant with my pockets filled with the two hamburgers and dozens of ketchup packets. I would then cut the hamburgers into small pieces, put them in a soup pot with boiling water and add the ketchup.”

But somehow, the organization always managed to survive, despite several close calls, Atkinson always felt compelled to keep going. The program itself has grown as well. He created the Bismarck Educational System for developing nations which has become an international model, he was asked in 2000 by the United Nations to develop other international programs for AIDs victims.

Nuestros Ahijados or the God’s Child Program acts like god parents to these kids and creates family. The word God is not meant to have a religious connotation; rather it means they act as god parents.

“If you don’t have family, you can get it in Nuestros Ahijados, I am unable to explain how much it helped me. It gave me love and a family. I don’t have words, only love,” said Jose Leon Suruy Valle, who was found in a plaza by Atkinson when he was thirteen and now works as a social worker for the organization to help other families. He will be going to university next year.

The project itself is multidimensional. It includes a shelter for malnourished babies, a hospital, a dental clinic, food and clothing distribution program, educational programs, house building project, a rescue, awareness and rehabilitation program for victims of human trafficking and a school. They also help support local charities in the countries in which they operate.

“Our vision is to form family and to break the poor out of poverty through education,” said Atkinson. “These kids don’t have a culture of success. They need to form a family, to teach these kids how to dream and give them the tools to make those dreams come true.”

It is just this, the forming of family through a nonprofit that makes Nuestros Ahijados so unique and so successful. Unlike other nonprofits which recognize the value of education and strive to help underprivileged kids graduate high school, Nuestros Ahijados realizes that a high school education often isn’t enough to break the chain of poverty. Once a child is accepted into the program, they are sponsored until they choose to stop studying.

“I remember a boy we pulled out from under a park bench when he was seven years old, now he is a doctor,” said Atkinson.

Some of the students go on to study in the U.S. and come back as doctors and lawyers, and many of them return to work for the very organization that gave them a chance and a family. The real family environment makes a huge difference compared to other charities. “We ban vernacular like, ‘you already got yours,’ ‘come back later,’ or ‘we are busy right now.’ These are our children. We create a family for them. We don’t institutionalize them, that’s fine for summer camp, but this is these kid’s only chance for childhood. They want someone that is going to remember their birthday, someone who will remember what they were like when they were 7 when they are 23,” said Atkinson.

Nuestros Ahijados is not a handout charity. They work on an ideological system based on earned rights. Everyone should have access to certain humanitarian rights, but it does no good to set up a paradigm that creates a dependence on help. Through a point system, children are encouraged to read more. For every fifteen minutes they read they get a point and with these points they can “buy” a new toy. Mothers get points for attending lectures that cover common issues regarding raising children or basic medical care. With these points they can receive food and clothing donations. This also helps because Nuestros Ahijados is not an orphanage, so children go back to their parents, or more often single mothers, at the end of the day and the program helps to create positive changes at home as well as at school. Children get more privileges based on their report cards which teaches them take responsibility for their own achievements and work towards setting goals.

The children help with the maintenance of the school and the clinic grounds as well. They, in essence, have built the program so it is in their self-interest to help maintain it. This sets up an environment of dignity and family. This dynamic replaces the donor mentality that resides in other nonprofits.

“A lot of programs fail because they don’t dignify the people, they treat them as caseloads,” said Atkinson. This approach adds to the sustainability of the program.

Though the project has grown from the original 35 kids, the vision as well as the founder has remained the same. “I’m still the same as I was when I thought I would come down here and drive a tractor. The vision is the same as it was originally,” said Atkinson, “The project has grown and my role has changed. Now I meet with presidents, ambassadors and secretary of states from around the world but I have stayed the same. I am just so ordinary. I don’t want to lose that because if I ever start to believe my own P.R. then it’s over.”

And Atkinson does have some remarkable P.R. Now the man who used to struggle to buy two hamburgers for orphans has been interviewed by CNN, LA Times, Christian Science Monitor, and has a book written about him that is currently being made into a Hollywood movie.
He is an example of how one person can make a difference without knowing how. “I say something so much that it has become known as the Atkinson Law and that is that people want to help and they can afford to help, they just don’t know how. And that is why I have never had a problem fundraising. I just give people the opportunity to realize their dreams,” said Atkinson.

He firmly believes that everyone can help. “Everyone has their gifts. Take the time to take a personal inventory of what those are, because someday the time will come when some group will need them. Simply say yes.” That is his advice for anyone who wants to help, “Say yes. The opportunity is going to come your way. It won’t take anything from you.”

Because so many people are saying yes, Atkinson has managed to make a difference in so many people’s lives. Many of the volunteers in Guatemala come back to volunteer several times because it is so effective. The Director of Programs, Luke Armstrong started his involvement with the project when he was 13 and came down as part of a service team to build houses.

Because the program is so affective, donors and volunteers keep coming back to help.

“It has become more of a social movement, I know of at least eight charities that have started because someone came down here and saw how this was run and have started their own charities that work the same way,” said Atkinson.

The sky seems to be the limit as the project continues to grow, and Atkinson is a prime example of how one person really can help change the world. “People want to give. All I am doing is giving them a chance to realize their dreams,” said Atkinson.