Part of the bitter pill we must swallow is that life isn’t the same for everyone. Some enjoy the luxury of sleeping in a comfortable home and eating three meals a day without worries. In contrast, others suffer the harsh reality of toiling on the ground 24/7 without earning enough to make ends meet, let alone live in a decent place.
While Guatemala is a megadiverse country, rich in natural resources and biodiversity, it is a third-world and underdeveloped country with many impoverished areas.
MrBeast, a widely popular influencer and philanthropist, saw a tiny Guatemalan community’s need for rebuilding, restoration, and hope. The community is located in the middle of the country’s jungle. Many of the houses in the community are immensely tiny and poorly constructed, so they cannot withstand the brutal tropical storms that visit the jungle every summer.
Because of their living conditions, the community’s residents must rebuild their homes every so often to protect their families, especially the children.
The city of Guatemala is in stark contrast to the jungle community in terms of living opportunities and infrastructure.
To bridge this gap, MrBeast reached out to Techo, a non-profit organization they partnered with before, to rebuild ten homes in another impoverished area in Costa Rica to save and restore the remote Guatemalan town.
A week later, MrBeast’s partner Darren arrived in Guatemala to check the location. He was met with the poor and harsh realities of the remote town.
He experienced how hard it was to reach the location as he had to charter a plane to a nearby town and tread the thick jungle terrain for miles before arriving at the remote jungle town. Unfortunately, walking for miles to and from the remote town is a daily practice for locals to generate an income.
Darren met with Alberto, a local who rears eight children and travels for hours every single day to reach the city nearest to their town, where he sells fabrics and makes a meager income of $2 a day. And if their suffering isn’t enough, Alberto’s entire family stays in a single bedroom in an almost dilapidated house.
This isn’t just Alberto’s ordeals; it is the ordeal of every other settler in the town. The locals live in rough abodes with floors made of dirt and zero electricity, causing them to make fires inside their homes to cook and keep them warm during cold nights. To make things worse, the community has little water supply from wells, barely enough for everyone to get their share.
In partnership with Techo, MrBeast and his team are constructing 15 new homes with solar panels for basic electricity, concrete flooring, a sanitation system, a wood-burning stove, and a rain harvesting system with storage and filtration.
Techo sent 50 volunteers to build the homes and be a beacon of light to the town’s less fortunate settlers. MrBeast, Darren, and Techo gave hope to Alberto and the rest of the community.
