{"id":2717,"date":"2012-03-13T09:24:07","date_gmt":"2012-03-13T14:24:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/college.web.unc.edu\/?p=2717"},"modified":"2024-07-02T13:27:56","modified_gmt":"2024-07-02T13:27:56","slug":"hoganguatemal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/?p=2717","title":{"rendered":"A Little Bit of Promise: UNC chemist builds school in Guatemalan village"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
With help from a Chapman Fellowship, Brian Hogan brought books translated into the native language, Q’eqchi, to the village of Nueva Esperanza.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In his own words, UNC chemist Brian Hogan calls himself a \u201ccrazy scientist who wanted to build a school in Guatemala.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is a story of how one man with an idea really can change the world. It\u2019s also a story about how Carolina is helping him to do just that.<\/p>\n

It all started in 2006 with a beautiful, spunky, 5-month-old baby girl named Lexi. Brian and his wife Kelly<\/a>, a UNC biologist, decided to adopt a daughter from Guatemala \u2014 a little sister for their son, Jake.<\/p>\n

In June of that year, Brian and Kelly flew to Guatemala City to pick up the new addition to their family.<\/p>\n

\u201cI knew I was going to see some poverty, but I was not prepared for what I saw,\u201d Brian recalled. \u201cWhen we landed, and I saw shanty towns on the hillside, it was shocking.\u201d He calls their brief time in Guatemala a very \u201cgringo\u201d experience; he and Kelly stayed in a nice, comfortable hotel.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Brian Hogan (right) waves outside the new school in Nueva Esperanza, Guatemala.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

But after Brian returned home, he just couldn\u2019t get the images of poverty out of his mind. The couple got involved with a local nonprofit, Guatemalan Student Support Group<\/a> (GSSG), that brings high-school-age Guatemalan students to the Triangle area to study at local schools. The Hogans provided support to a student named Byron at St. Thomas More School in Chapel Hill. Today Brian serves on the board of the student support organization. He also serves as academic director of the Scholars\u2019 Latino Initiative<\/a>, a program of UNC\u2019s Center for Global Initiatives that works to improve access to higher education for Latino high school students.<\/p>\n

Still, Brian longed to do more to help Lexi\u2019s country. And that\u2019s where UNC stepped in, specifically the Institute for the Arts and Humanities in the College of Arts and Sciences. In spring 2011, Brian was awarded a Chapman Family Fellowship<\/a>, a $10,000 award that recognizes outstanding teaching of undergraduates. Through his connection to GSSG, Brian decided to visit the remote rural village of Nueva Esperanza, located in the indigenous Izabal region not far from where Belize and Honduras meet.<\/p>\n

About 1,000 people live in Nueva Esperanza, where there is no clean water, no electricity, and 90 percent of the population speaks the native language, Q\u2019eqchi. The illiteracy rate is very high.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Brian Hogan with girls who will attend the new school in Nueva Esperanza.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

With the Chapman Fellowship, Brian brought a collection of unbound, stapled books translated into English, Spanish and Q\u2019eqchi, and he took them to the village whose name translated into English means \u201cnew hope.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the girls walked three hours for a book and a pencil,\u201d Brian said. \u201cI gave her two.\u201d<\/p>\n

And then the village elders came to him with a very special request. They wanted a new school to replace the existing, 40-year-old concrete school, which was collapsing.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt seemed like such an astronomical task. How am I going to build a building in the middle of nowhere?\u201d said Brian. \u201cThere were some lean financial times in my childhood, but education gave me everything I have. If I\u2019m going to espouse how important education is, then I better put my money where my mouth is.\u201d (Both he and Kelly received their Ph.D.\u2019s from Carolina.)<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Brian, Kelly, Jake and Lexi Hogan<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In the meantime, Byron, the GSSG student that Brian and Kelly mentored, graduated from high school and moved back to Guatemala. He become a key, on-the-ground liaison in helping Brian (who used Chapman money for the project) to build a new school for the village.<\/p>\n

The school was dedicated on Jan. 7 of this year.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe goal of the Chapman Fellowship is to transform the person,\u201d said Kelly, who also received a Chapman award in spring 2012. \u201cAnd the people of Nueva Esperanza got into his head and his heart so fast.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the UNC connection doesn\u2019t stop there. Brian decided he wanted to form a nonprofit organization to support indigenous villages in Guatemala. He ran his proposal by chemistry colleague Joseph DeSimone, an established entrepreneur. DeSimone connected Brian with University Entrepreneur-in-Residence Buck Goldstein<\/a>. A five-member team of students in Goldstein\u2019s First Year Seminar on entrepreneurship are acting as consultants to the project.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The Guatemalan countryside, near Nueva Esperanza.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Kat Summerton, a first-year student from Colorado, is a member of the team that has already created an official student organization, A Little Bit of Promise. She and team members Lily Rolader, David Ortiz, Jenny Sun and Felicia Zbarcea are working this semester on setting up a 501 (c) (3) nonprofit. They\u2019ll be creating a logo, a Web site, determining how best to raise money \u2014 and, most importantly, working on making the organization sustainable in the long term.<\/p>\n

\u201cDr. Hogan teaches here, and he loves it. He has his life here, but he\u2019s so excited all the time about the work he\u2019s doing in Guatemala,\u201d Summerton said. \u201cIt\u2019s cool that we can provide the other side and give him the support and structure he needs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Summerton said providing Nueva Esperanza with potable water is a critical part of keeping girls in school, a mission of the new organization.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe average distance that women and children have to walk every day to get water is 2 km. And so it\u2019s really hard to have time to go to school when you have to spend time getting water and supporting your family,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd increasing literacy will help with poverty and long-term progress for the village.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Kelly and Lexi Hogan<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

On that front, Brian just received a $4,000 grant from the UNC Center for Global Initiatives<\/a> to develop a course on water chemistry and poverty in Guatemala called \u201cWater: Properties, pollution, potability and poverty.\u201d Beginning in fall 2012, UNC will commit to a two-year academic theme centered around water.<\/p>\n

One might say this Tar Heel-helps-Guatemala story has a happy ending. But really it\u2019s just the beginning. The village elders have already submitted more requests: a solar panel, computers, more books. A neighboring village has asked for a medical clinic.<\/p>\n

Brian refuses to get discouraged. Since that very first trip to bring Lexi home, he has been to Guatemala about five times.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday every problem that comes across my desk is a first-world problem. I have clean drinking water and Internet access,\u201d he said. \u201cEvery time I go to Guatemala and look into the dark brown eyes of those girls, I see my daughter.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt inspires me to keep pushing forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

[ Story by Kim Weaver Spurr \u201988; photos courtesy of Brian and Kelly Hogan. ]<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In his own words, UNC chemist Brian Hogan calls himself a \u201ccrazy scientist who wanted to build a school in Guatemala.\u201d This is a story of how one man with an idea really can change the world. 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