Our History

Guatemala is a country of marked contrasts: indescribable physical beauty with volcanoes and lakes, and cultural marvels of a unique Mayan civilization yet economic and social indicators of extreme poverty, illiteracy and disease. The majority of the 12,000,000 inhabitants are Maya living in rural areas of this mountainous country. The people continue to recover from a tragic 36 year civil war that ended in 1996 which left 200,000 Mayans dead. Equitable land use remains a major problem with wealthy ladinos owning 80% of the arable land.

Although STARFISH ONE BY ONE (SF) was incorporated in Colorado and received its IRS 501c3 status in 2007, the founders have had a 10 year experience working in rural development in Guatemala.

Connie and Ted Ning are the co-founders of THE FRIENDSHIP BRIDGE (TFB) which began work in Vietnam in 1989 as a medical relief organization and evolved into a rural development organization with a large women’s microcredit program.

In 1998, under the leadership of Ted, Connie and Mimi Schlumberger, TFB began a rural microcredit program in the Lake Atitlan region of Guatemala. Because of the low literacy, low health indicators and poverty of these communities, a non-formal education program was created coupled with small loans for the women borrowers in areas of women’s leadership, business training and women’s and children’s health. Pilot programs were also created including scholarships for the children of the borrowers.

TFB (www.friendshipbridge.org) continues as a very successful Microcredit Plus program with over 16,000 women borrowers. Ted and Connie left TFB in 2007 to found STARFISH ONE BY ONE to focus on rural education, especially for girls.