School Supplies for 5,560 Students

SCHOOL SUPPLIES FOR STUDENTS EACH JANUARY

This has been a Foundation tradition for quite a few years in the project areas:  The Patzicia Foundation School, the Ariel and Ines Andersen Chuluc School, and in the Municipality of Santa Cruz Verapaz' rural schools.  

Theoretically the government is supposed to do this to begin each school year, but usually it doesn't happen until several months into the school year,  This makes it impossible to get the year started right, and of course the finish isn't good either.  On April 1, 2011 the government teachers all went on strike as the government still hadn't provided the supplies, nor the school nutrition supplements, etc. 

 Our schools, and the government schools in Santa Cruz didn't strike as they had what they needed.  Below is a composite photo of most of the schools where we distributed  supplies to 5,560 children.  Click on the photo if you want to see the enlarged version.

Thanks to Federico, our Regional Director, who almost wore out his 4 x 4 pickup grinding his way all over Santa Cruz Verapaz to get supplies to 30 rural schools, and of course thanks to all the donors who so generously made this project successful again.