The Students in Los Riojas have Uniforms

Most of these kids don’t live in Los Riojas and walk a long way to get to school. The long pants and jackets will keep them warm on these chilly desert mornings, and provide an added inducement for the parents to send the kids to school. Pots, cups and serving spoons will keep the kids at the school instead of walking home for lunch. If the estimate of Maria and Diana, the primary and pronoei school directors is correct that will add about an hour of classroom time each day.

The man in the above photo is Cesar Pejerrey, a supervisor from the Tùcume office of education. His job is to make sure that government donated food is being delivered on time and in the correct amount to the schools, and that schools are using it properly. He got caught up in our activity; enthusiastically helping the kids put on their uniforms, staging photos and thanking us for our work in his district. 

We’ve provided teaching aids for the pronoei, and storage shelves, cooking equipment and uniforms for both schools. The rest is up to them, and we’re confident that with Maria and Diana the teaching and learning is in good hands. As a point of information, we estimated $900 for this project. The actual cost was $907.29, the difference being individual drinking cups for each student that we didn’t initially plan on. Close enough.

Our thanks to Chris R., the Alice Cool Foundation, Joyce C., and others for providing the means to make this project happen.

*****

We’re half-way through 2015 and have been involved in four projects: the villages of Conchucos, Santos Vera, Las Salinas and Los Riojas…all of them in the Tùcume District. The cost for these projects was $2480.26, which to us represents an investment in the education of the kids and hopefully advancement for the communities. We’d like to return to the Tumàn District, both because it’s closer to Chiclayo and there are more needy villages, but the political instability still hasn’t been resolved. Whenever the situation gets settled, there are going to be many small village schools that will need help to recover from a chaotic school year. Earlier in the year we visited several Morrope District communities but didn’t find a village that we philosophically matched up with.

What does the rest of the year look like? We’ve got three invitations to visit villages near Tùcume. And it just may be that we’ll be meeting with Tùcume authorities to discuss the possibility of a permanent school in El Pavo. We’ve never partnered with a governmental agency on any previous projects, so are approaching this situation very carefully. Also, it’s not too early to consider December chocolatada candidates. And as usually happens there will be a project or two that surfaces that is not even on our radar at present.

Again, thanks to those who are contributing to our work. Without you it doesn’t happen.