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Ready, steady, build...

The new school year starts in the first week of February for the children who attend the school in El Ojochal del Listón.  This does not mean that all is quiet in the school building though – far from it!  For several weeks now the school has been a hive of activity as teams of community volunteers are helping Nuevas Esperanzas’ builders improve the existing school and build a second classroom.

Conditions at the school have been very basic up till now with a simple corrugated iron roof over a makeshift wooden classroom structure and dirt floor.  The 20 primary school children have often had to huddle in a corner when the rain comes.  For the 12 pre-school children and Adilia, their teacher, it has been even worse as their classroom has been nothing more than an improvised hut made of palm leaves.  The idea of having a ‘proper’ school is something that the children and their teachers have been looking forward to for a long time.

Building a new classroom and improving the existing one will mean that the pre-school and primary children will have a proper learning environment for their lessons.  Yelsis, the school teacher, has been very involved along the way and Nuevas Esperanzas’ engineer, Arturo, has been able to modify the design of the building extension to suit the mixed age primary group she teaches.  Instead of the traditional classroom layout with one whiteboard, the new classroom will have five smaller whiteboards so that each of the five year groups that Yelsis teaches at the same time has their own space to learn.  Yelsis is really pleased that after years of being almost forgotten by the local authorities, work is finally underway to provide the community with a decent school for their children.

Plans to work on the school have been in the making for a couple of years but the need to first improve the road access from San Jacinto has kept the children waiting a little longer.   Being able to transport the materials up the 6 km mountain road to El Ojochal on the back of the 4x4 Land Cruiser instead of having to haul them up by horse has made a huge difference to the work.  It is not going to take long for Nuevas Esperanzas’ builders to turn the plans into reality with the help of lots of willing volunteers from the community.

It has been wonderful to see the way the community has got involved.  Some of those who make up the work teams do not even have children at the school!  A solar panel recently given to the community will be fitted to the roof of the new school so that a programme of adult education classes can be implemented later in the year.   As the only community building available, the school is often used as a meeting place and everyone is excited about these improvements.  Work is due to be completed at the end of February and there is certain to be a big party to celebrate the first day of term in the new school.  We are very grateful to New Hope, Llantwit Major for funding this project.

26/01/10