Child

Welcome!

Education for the Children Foundation was established in 2003. We are a registered charity in the UK, the registration number is 1099280.

On 5th October 2005, we also established a legal charitable foundation in Guatemala called Fundaciòn Educando A Los Niños.

The stated aims of the charity are:

'to advance the education of children in Central America by the provision of schools, schools equipment and teaching personnel.'

'to relieve the poverty and sickness of children who are educated by the foundation, together with their families, by the provision of shelter, amenities, facilities and equipment, in any such charitable way as the charity trustees determine.'

The first project of the foundation was to support a small school in the town of Antigua, Guatemala.

The school was established in 1992. It was supported entirely by volunteer donations, and was set up to educate children from families too poor to send their children to state school, this requires the families to pay for the provision of books, materials and school uniform. Although this may not seem a lot the cost is often almost half of some family's income per child!

In the summer of 2003, the school had run out of money and the main benefactor had withdrawn his support. There were only two teachers and four unqualified young foreign volunteers to teach and care for seventy five children. The teachers had not been paid and were on the point of leaving. The foundation was able to step in and undertake to support and keep the school open.

The foundation first stabilised the school and then began to improve both the infrastructure and the teaching standards. By 2004 more teachers were employed on full time permanent contracts and educational materials were being purchased on a regular basis. The school was then able to attract ninety plus children from disadvantaged backgrounds to attend each day.

In the autumn of 2004, a French NGO carried out an evaluation of the school. It was a positive and far reaching report which highly praised the efforts of the principals of the school. In addition however, it highlighted several areas in which improvements could be made, subject to funding. One of these areas was the size of the school. Reflecting on the report it became clear to us that the size of the school was inhibiting our ambitions. We therefore, gave our first priority to funding a bigger building which could; a) take more children and b) educate them in an atmosphere more conducive to learning.

In early December 2004, we found a large empty unit in the centre of Jocotenango which is a poor area adjoining Antigua. Although the unit costs were a lot higher than before, we took the decision to commit to it.

On January 17 2005, Escuela Proyecto La Esperanza opened its doors for the first time to 150 children.

We have increased the number of children at the primary school each year and now have 275 children in 11 classes from prep to year 6 at Escuela Proyecto La Esperanza.

On 22nd January 2007 we opened our second school, Escuela Proyecto La Esperanza - Nivel Basico. This is a senior school and will take graduates from our primary school. There was a real need for a senior school in our area as it was unlikely that our 2006 sixth grade graduates would find a place to continue their education.

At present only 5% of Guatemalan children even begin this senior school stage of education. Our senior school now educates 100 children across 3 years.

We also have a further 23 scholarship students that we are supporting through various state colleges.

In addition to teaching the full national curriculum both schools provide nutritious meals daily to our children. For many this is their only meal of the day.

Our promise to the children is that we will facilitate their education as far as their ability will allow. For many we hope this is university.

As you will see from the next few pages, we have substantially increased our presence and have major plans to further improve the opportunities open to the poorest children of Central America.