With Child Development a primary value in raising our children, the call we received to help 240 children in a rural school in El Salvador was a call we could not ignore. 

Living in El Salvador for 30 months, we were witness to the incredible lack of resources in the public schools.  With education one of the Rotary Foundation’s global goals and knowing that education is the path from poverty, we have taken it as a personal challenge to improve public schools in El Salvador.  We are completing major improvements in our 6^th public school. 

In a recent post in his blog titled El Salvador Perspectives, Tim Muth highlighted an article in El Faro about the recent analysis of education in El Salvador.  He titled it “An Education System in Ruins”.

Here are a few bullets from that publication:

Only 84% of the children in El Salvador attend school.

The school calendar shows 200 school days but with many holidays, the boys and girls attend 100 days per year. 

There are 5136 public schools, however 60% were declared non student ready by the education ministry in 2015.

In addition to leaking roofs, lack of desks and text books, 20% of the schools have a budget of under $1600 per year.

Our current project is now in its 5^th year.  It’s one that we became aware of from the owner of our guest house in San Salvador.  What got our attention was the fact that the parents asked for help to improve the futures of their children.  They wanted their children to remain in their community while in school and not have to travel to a neighboring community where gangs and danger lurk.  With that commitment from the parents, we have worked to rebuild the entire campus and added two more buildings.

Other foundations in El Salvador have taken notice of this facility and are also contributing improvements including a science lab, new furniture and training for improving the teachers’ skill level.

We return in January with friends to distribute text books to the students in grades 1 thru 6.  This will complete text books for grades K-9.

Sunrise Rotary West Bend has committed to fund a new cooking area at this school.  It will be environmentally correct by having a chimney to clear the smoke from the cook’s presence and also will be cleaner with new preparation areas, and surrounded with a fence to keep the stray dogs away from the food and cooking. 

What’s next?  A meeting with Habitat for Humanity of El Salvador for a developing community pre-school for very poor rural children to enter the public school system.   The parents who work all day just to put food on the table do not have time or the education to prepare their children for school, but they want their children to have a foundation in education in order to succeed.

Below are pictures of the new boys and girls restrooms that are being completed this month to be ready for the new school year starting in January 2018.