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09 April 2010
Escuela Proyecto La Esperanza is the name of EFTC's School.
It translates to The School of Hope.
It is dedicated to educating some of the poorest children in San Felipe, Jocotenango and the surrounding villages close to Antigua in Guatemala.
Monday 17th January 2011 was a landmark day in the history of Education For The Children Foundation. After two years of fundraising and one year of building, our brand new school was ready to welcome students for the 2011 school year.
The opening ceremony was attended by students, their families, supporters and staff from both the UK and Guatemala. Guests of honour included HM Ambassador Julie Chappell OBE, dedicated local supporters Katie Cunningham and Ricardo Pokorny and school architect Pierre Turlin. Katie and Ricardo sold us the plot of land on the Azotea farm at a massive discount and on a long-term repayment scheme. Katie also sits on our Guatemala Committee. Pierre worked at greatly reduced rates in conjunction with local suppliers El Mastil who offered us discounted materials in support of our work in the community.
The school is capable of supporting 500 students from Reception through to Secondary and also has a study room for our scholarship students who live in conditions where home study just isn’t possible. We provide these children and young people with everything they need from their learning materials, nutritious food, and healthcare, to psychological help, shelter and community support - as well as everything else you'd imagine you would need to succeed in a severely disadvantaged community such as shoes, toothpaste, clean water and clothes.
The services that we provide support the most vulnerable of children. 80% of our children live in the 'slums' on the steep hillside of Vista Hermosa (which translates to 'Beautiful View') these families could not afford to send their children to school so instead they would join the 35% of Guatemalan children that form part of the countries labour force.
Staff and children alike are greatly benefitting from the purpose-built facilities we did not have at our old schools. The children now have access to a huge green sports pitch behind the school in the Azotea grounds. Many of the children had never played on grass before. The Library is so popular that staff have had to impose a limit on how many children can come in at one time!
We want the quality of education at our school to be second to none so that we can help each child reach their full potential and equip them with the necessary skills and values to prosper in a modern Guatemala. We believe that good computer skills and a working knowledge of English will improve our students’ employability so this year we have introduced English and Computer Studies for our Primary students. We have also hired dedicated music and PE teachers for the first time.
Our new extracurricular programme will allow our students to express themselves and grow as people. The structured after school programme includes: dance, creative writing (bottom left) cooking, drama, art, football, athletics, guitar (top left), carpentry, environmental club, English for Scholarship students and also a school newspaper.
Routine
The school opens bright and early at 7.30am when children begin to arrive and play with their friends and prepare for another day at school. At 8am the bells rings and they line up to enter the classrooms with their teacher.
Morning classes are from 8am until 12.30pm. In these classes the children will be taught the national curriculum, Math, Science, Spanish, and Social Studies. Each Child is given a text book at the beginning of the year to work through for each of the subjects.
The children have a short break at 10am, where they each receive a snack and a drink to keep them going, for example, cereal, fruit, pancakes, biscuits or a sandwich.
For many children that attend the school, this will be the first thing that they have had to eat that day. After finishing their snack, the children are free to play with their friends for the rest of the break.
When classes end at 12.30pm, the children then receive a nutritious and balanced lunch. It is really important that they receive the vitamins and nutrients that they require as they may be lacking at home. We give them a variety of food from Chicken, rice and vegetables to pasta or soups. They also have various traditional dishes like Chile, Rellenos or Pepian and they will receive a small dessert afterwards, like fruit or Jello.
After lunch the youngest children from pre school head home as it has been a long day for them, the others return to their classrooms at 2pm. For the rest of the afternoon the students from first grade that have problems with their work have a reinforcement class, where the teacher and volunteers sit down and concentrate on the students that are behind or that may have learning disabilities.
The students from second grade to sixth grade have half an hour of reinforcement and then at 2.30pm begin a variety of classes and activities depending on the day of the week. The afternoon classes include I.T, Music, Sports, Crafts, and Art.
Classes end at 4pm and the students begin to clean up in their classrooms and get ready to go home!