El Ngäbe

El pueblo indígena Ngäbe-Buglé fue expulsado de sus tierras por décadas por parte de los colonos panameños y, recientemente, en 1997, alcanzó el estatus de semiautónomo. Los Ngäbe eran originalmente nómadas, y se trasladaban para cultivar nuevas tierras cada pocos años, pero se vieron obligados a asentarse debido a la escasez de tierras. Esto dio lugar a tierras de cultivo sobrecargadas, y como resultado, el pueblo Ngäbe lucha a diario para producir suficiente comida para sus familias. Hay niveles muy elevados de desnutrición crónica entre los Ngäbe y el nivel más bajo de satisfacción de las necesidades básicas. El terreno difícil, junto con la falta de carreteras, no hace sino complicar las cosas; la ayuda es costosa y difícil de lograr en las escarpadas zonas montañosas, y las comunidades están aisladas por las malas comunicaciones.

Los Ngäbe carecen de vínculos sólidos con el gobierno y a menudo no tienen la capacidad de expresar sus necesidades debido a las barreras culturales y lingüísticas. Muchas familias no pueden pagar la asistencia sanitaria, la educación, un hogar o servicios sanitarios básicos.

La mayoría de los estudiantes de la comarca se ven obligados a viajar a otro estado para recibir educación de nivel intermedio y secundario. A medida que progresan en la escuela, se enfrentan a los crecientes costos de viajes y alojamiento, además de a un segundo idioma y cultura. A pesar de la duplicación de los precios de los alimentos en los últimos dos años y la caída en sus niveles de producción, las familias de estas comunidades están haciendo enormes sacrificios para enviar a sus hijos a la escuela secundaria y darles la oportunidad de una vida mejor. Few for Change tiene como objetivo disminuir esta carga para las familias y mejorar las oportunidades para los estudiantes que no pueden pagarse la educación.

May 19, 2026

Where Your Donation Goes (Investing in Communities)

One of our guiding principles when we started Few for Change in 2009 was a simple but deeply held belief: the majority of every dollar donated should go directly to the communities with which we work. Our goal has always been to strengthen access to education to help break the cycle of poverty in the Ngäbe-Buglé Comarca. Now, nearly two decades later, we want to share with our donors how that commitment has held up over time.

December 2, 2025

A Panamanian Recipe: Sancocho de Pollo

Make sancocho with us! Sancocho is a hearty chicken and vegetable soup, considered by some to be the unofficial national dish of Panama.

May 27, 2025

College Dreams in the Comarca Ngäbe-Buglé, Part 1: What We’ve Learned

Few for Change was founded on the idea that investing in education means not just supporting young people, but building a better future for their communities. Now that Few for Change has supported students in the Comarca Ngäbe-Buglé for almost 16 years, we are learning together how to put our ideas into practice over the long-term.

Over the past few years, we have seen parts of this dream realized in some unexpected ways.

December 31, 2024

Happy New Year, and Happy Quinceañera (15 years) to Few for Change!

As we reflect on the past 15 years, it’s incredible to see how Few for Change has grown and evolved. In our 10 year blog post, we did a feature on Few for Change by the numbers. Those numbers have grown significantly!

May 5, 2024

Schools are few and far between for indigenous youth in the Comarca Ngäbe-Buglé

In 15 years, Few for Change has awarded over 125 scholarships. Few for Change volunteers look at report cards and essays from scholarship recipients each year to determine which students will receive a Few for Change scholarship. During my time as an Education Access Fellow, I have analyzed more than 200 report cards from 84 Few for Change scholarship recipients between 2010 and 2021. This research shows that the barriers that stand in the way of Few for Change scholarship recipients don’t stop them from succeeding in school.

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November 19, 2023

José Manuel: From Grade School in the Comarca to University in the U.S.

Each time Few for Change encounters José Manuel Sire, we see him do amazing things.

It started in February 2017, with an improvised speech at Few for Change’s annual scholarship ceremony.

October 9, 2022

Lost Language, Indigenous Knowledge, and the Comarca

Abby Outterson is a Few for Change Board Member and a writer for Public Health Post, an online magazine through Boston University’s School of Public Health that informs broader conversations around public health issues. For Indigenous People’s Day, we are sharing a post she wrote that centers the importance of Indigenous languages to public health.

February 27, 2022

Climate Change is a Barrier to Education in the Comarca Ngäbe-Buglé

Few for Change’s mission is to strengthen communities by improving access to education in underserved indigenous areas of Panama. Every year, it gets a little harder to do that. By itself, the COVID-19 pandemic has created myriad challenges for children and their families. Simultaneously, there is another global crisis that is making it harder for our students to pursue their dreams every year: climate change.

November 23, 2021

Dismantling Indigenous Stereotypes: Indigeneity and the Environment

FFC Volunteer Morgan Oestereich shares some of what she learned in a university seminar on Indigeneity and the environment.

May 25, 2021

In Their Own Words: Few for Change students on COVID, remote learning, and the importance of the scholarship

It’s been over a year since the COVID-19 pandemic forced schools around the world to move to remote learning. Although most schools in the U.S. have at least partially re-opened by now, countries such as Panama have not been able to re-open as quickly. Lack of infrastructure and a limited access to vaccines have both contributed to the slow reopening of schools in Panama. With a new school year getting underway in Panama, we checked in with some of our students about how remote schooling has been this past year, the challenges they’ve faced, and how they have persevered during the toughest of circumstances.

May 2, 2021

Reflections on a Year of Challenges and Growth

On March 1st, a new school year kicked off in Panama. Typically, we would have traveled to Panama in late February for a large scholarship ceremony with our students, their families, and our Panama-based volunteers, during which we would distribute the first installment of the scholarship money for the year. Each year this ceremony grows and in recent years we’ve reached more than 100 attendees. This is my favorite moment of the year with Few for Change, where we get to meet our new students, catch up with all of our existing students (and see whether they’ve grown a foot!), and spend quality time with our Junta Directiva (Advisory Board) in Panama, either during meetings or over meals in their homes.

March 26, 2021

Educational Access During the COVID-19 Pandemic

COVID-19 has wreaked havoc on indigenous and rural communities not only in health, but in access to education. Latin America and the Caribbean has felt much of the brunt of the impact with disconcerting statistics from UNICEF stating that over 97% of students were still out of the classrooms as of November 9th in Latin America and the Caribbean. This UNICEF study shows that since the beginning of the COVID pandemic, children in these regions have lost an average of four times more days of in person school comparatively to the rest of the world. This report details the undefined start dates for returning to schools in person, while the pressure in indigenous and rural populations to resume grows[1].