About Us

World Link's mission is to provide opportunity for individuals to improve the quality of their lives. We do this by strengthening and sustaining projects that provide services to people in need in Guatemala. This is accomplished by linking resources. We link donor resources and services with projects in need of support.

Our focus is projects that provide opportunity through women's literacy, nutrition & health, and microfinance.

World Link Partners was established in 1997 as a 501(c) (3) not-for-profit corporation by Beth and Marlin Dearden. Our work builds upon over 20 years of academic travel, living and working in developing countries. We have worked in two countries: Mongolia and Guatemala. Currently all of our work is in Guatemala.

We initially began our work in Guatemala with the establishment of small micro credit projects with the Mayan

women. In 2002 we moved to Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia where we worked for 1½ years in humanitarian work. We established a Street Children's Center, a non-residential center that provided education and hot meals for both street children and children at high risk. World Link Partner's role was to provide funding and management of the Center. The Center was in conjunction with the City of Ulaanbaatar. World Link Partners provided support for the Center for 5 years, at which point the City assumed (rightful) financial responsibility for it. For her work in the Center, Beth received the Order of the Polar Star Award. The highest award given for service by the Mongol nation.

In 2005, Beth and her husband Marlin retired from academics and moved to Antigua, Guatemala because they felt that it was increasingly important to be on-site with the projects we are working on behalf of. This provided more opportunity to work closely with the project directors, to travel to the projects, and evaluate and monitor them. We have spent the past 5 years in Guatemala identifying quality projects, working closely with the project directors, providing valuable services, and now are focusing on promotion of the projects for both increased awareness and for much needed funding.

More detailed information about the projects we provide support for is outlined on our projects page.