William is a good man.
He works hard. He loves his family. He does everything he can.
Every day he works the land — land he doesn’t own — just so his family has a place to sleep. He’s even managed to save enough to buy a small piece of property about a kilometer away. He has a plan. He has the will.
What he doesn’t have is time. Building on that land — on his own — would take years.
And in the meantime, his children Justin and Guadalupe are sleeping in the dirt, in a tin and cardboard shack, exposed to conditions that no child should face.
Conditions that already cost this family everything once before.
William and Elvira lost their daughter Yuvia.
Her kidneys started failing, and there was only one option: a transplant. William was a match. He didn’t hesitate. He stepped in — the cost, the travel, the recovery — all of it.
The transplant worked. She was recovering. He was recovering. And it felt like they had made it.
And then she got dengue fever.
Her body couldn’t handle it. They lost her. They buried their daughter on Mother’s Day.
Elvira told us this through tears. And sitting with them, you could feel it — it wasn’t a story being told. It was a wound still open.
We had originally planned to start in Guatemala in 2027.
But I cannot look William in the eye and tell him to wait two more years.
He’s not someone who gave up. He’s someone who needs someone to step in and help carry what he can’t carry alone.
That’s what Hope and Horizons is here to do.
Their home is fully funded. Construction begins soon. Justin and Guadalupe are going to have a floor, four walls, and a roof — and a future that doesn’t look like the one that took their sister.
Follow their story as we build.
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Josh Hackworth
Director, Hope and Horizons Foundation