Matt Paneitz
Executive Director
Long Way Home
San Juan Comalapa, Guatemala
LISTEN to today's conversation with Matt Paneitz
Executive Director
Long Way Home
San Juan Comalapa, Guatemala
LISTEN to today's conversation with Matt Paneitz
Mission: Long Way Home is a non-profit organization which uses sustainable design and materials to construct self-sufficient schools that promote education, employment and environmental stewardship.
In support of its mission, LWH’s committed community of volunteers and staff have joined together to design and build a campus in San Juan Comalapa, Guatemala that now provides a vibrant, accessible, and democratic education to over a hundred children, grades K-9. Students attending Técnico Chixot Education Center increase their literacy skills and thus their economic sustainability; they also learn first hand what it means to be an active participant and contributor to a developing democratic society. Additionally, the Center’s students engage in service learning projects that provide opportunities for them to utilize their passions and imaginations as well as problem-solving skills. They work cooperatively, creatively, and resiliently to develop their own minds and hearts in projects that build capacity in their local communities.
According to political thinker and educator John Dewey, who developed experimentalism and is a primary influence shaping LWH’s philosophy, “education must first be human”. With this in mind the organization places people and sustainable living at the center of its school community where environmentally consciousness living and green building techniques are taught as well as modeled.
LWH is a mission-driven organization that works to resist the forces of economic and environmental devastation through education. Enacting teaching and learning “as a practice of freedom”, LWH directs its initiatives and resources to break the cycle of poverty through the formulation and practice of ground-breaking solution-oriented effort.
In support of its mission, LWH’s committed community of volunteers and staff have joined together to design and build a campus in San Juan Comalapa, Guatemala that now provides a vibrant, accessible, and democratic education to over a hundred children, grades K-9. Students attending Técnico Chixot Education Center increase their literacy skills and thus their economic sustainability; they also learn first hand what it means to be an active participant and contributor to a developing democratic society. Additionally, the Center’s students engage in service learning projects that provide opportunities for them to utilize their passions and imaginations as well as problem-solving skills. They work cooperatively, creatively, and resiliently to develop their own minds and hearts in projects that build capacity in their local communities.
According to political thinker and educator John Dewey, who developed experimentalism and is a primary influence shaping LWH’s philosophy, “education must first be human”. With this in mind the organization places people and sustainable living at the center of its school community where environmentally consciousness living and green building techniques are taught as well as modeled.
LWH is a mission-driven organization that works to resist the forces of economic and environmental devastation through education. Enacting teaching and learning “as a practice of freedom”, LWH directs its initiatives and resources to break the cycle of poverty through the formulation and practice of ground-breaking solution-oriented effort.
In a time of global crisis when people and the natural world face growing challenges to livelihood and sustainability, LWH responds with thoughtful and data-driven humanitarianism; facilitated through creative problem-posing strategies, imaginative experimentation, and courageous exploration. In keeping with this guiding principle, LWH is an innovative and pioneering research institute dedicated to the gathering and analysis of data relevant to its mission.
WATCH the Long Way Home Green Building videos.
