Updates
Newsletter #3 - November, 2009
First, congratulations to Alicia, the head teacher and Director of La Escuelita, who graduated from her continuing education program in July! The Teacher Scholarship Program supports all three teachers to continue their education. We all know that better prepared teachers means an improved school. Leo and Sugey and Meyling continue in their studies.
We started the academic year in the first week of February with a bang! The teachers had to cut off registration at 160 children (in past years about 120 registered every year). Many of the new parents explained that they wanted their children to attend La Escuelita because they were aware of the lunch program, the health and dental programs and the care that these teachers give the children. As the academic year is ending 110 students are completing the year. That’s up from the usual 80. So the school is reaching more children in their beginning years.
La Escuelita has been hard hit by the financial crisis just as we all have. The cost of food in Nicaragua has skyrocketed and now with almost double the usual number of children the monthly budget for food has gone from $200 to $500 per month. Early in the year we made a decision that we would not cut the number of students who received food, nor the amount or quality of the food. Besides educational materials, food is the single most important element in the school budget. For a majority of the children this meal is the only real meal they eat each school day.
With a generous monthly donation from a church, the library has gone from a few donated books to one that has storybooks and resource materials for all ages. The teachers hold a Readers Program once a week for the children and with the beautiful storybooks they now read to the children every day. The children are developing a love of reading and older children in the community use the library resources to do their homework.
I have worked with the teachers of La Escuelita for the past 5 years. These teachers came from families that were not literate and they and their students live in homes without books. I have watched the teachers grow as they continue their own education through a Teacher Scholarship Fund at the school. They themselves now understand the necessity for books and have developed this library based on the needs of their students to be exposed daily to good books and the needs of youth in the community to have access to books to foster a love of education.
We had hoped to enlarge the space of the school so that there would be more room to expand the library. However, the neighborhood is very crowded and so we cannot build outward in any direction and the school is located on a seismic fault, which makes it impractical and unsafe to build a second floor above the classrooms.
Thus we are staying with the large bookcase we have and what it can hold. We are focusing more on continuing the Readers Program and fundraising for food and school supplies that have all gone up in price and, with the increase in students expected for the new academic year in January 2010, in amounts.
We always appreciate your interest in what is happening in the school and your support for the programs and the children!
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La Escuelita is under the 501c3 of CEPAD*USA, a US organization that
works for the poor of Nicaragua and is connected to CEPAD Nicaragua, a Nicaraguan development organization of protestant churches.
To donate to La Escuelita, make checks out to CEPAD*USA
earmarked for La Escuelita and send to:
5605 Groomsbridge Court
Raleigh, NC 27612
Tel: 919-783-6478
All contributions are deductible for U.S. I.R.S purposes.
La Escuelita
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Your Donation Can Be Designated.
Simply attach a note to your check informing us to
whom and where the formal notification of your
honorarium or memorial gift should be sent.
Also, if you wish your donation to go to a Project, Wish List item
or Teacher Scholarship Program, please indicate on a note also.
Your return receipt will also indicate your specific designation.
We thank you most kindly for your assistance.
