Mexican Schools Project

Here are a few pics of the ribbon cutting of the new school in the village of Pedro Moreno.  The school was funded by the Sunrise Rotary Club. Barb Crompton and friends were generous enough to fund the new washrooms when funds ran low.

It was a wonderful celebration, complete with entertainment from the children, a wonderful meal, and speeches from dignitaries.

Upon visiting a market on the weekend  in a tiny village just north of Pt. Vallarta we noticed a lot of children busy doing crafts, reading  and having a lot of fun.  Upon asking, we found out that every weekend and everyday after school a retired professor called Sergio and his friends volunteer their time to run these activities.  It is their effort to mprove the lives of the children in their community.

They have a broken down van that they use to transport craft supplies, books etc, for the kids and all they ask for is donations so they can buy more supplies.  Recently they were broken into  and all they supplies were taken.  We could not help them enough and hope to assit them in the future.  I just received an email from Sergio and now they are going into outlying communities and helping out.  Pretty Amazing.

Here are the amazing students of Medicine Hat:

This past year we also built of a new kindergarten school in the village of Naranjitos. Here are a couple of photos of the new school and the remains of the old stick school.

The Sunrise and Pace Rotary Clubs from Medicine Hat Alberta donated funds so this school could be built with matching funds from the local government.

That is about it until next year..

Bob signing out for 2010

What a year down Olde Mexico way. It is truly amazing with all the ills that are happening in Mexico (Corruption, Cartels and a Crashing Economy) that there is still so much sweetness and always a time for a good laugh with the local people especially the children. After being robbed, accidentally trying to help hired asassins (who were later apprehended), and seeing my good friend Margarito have to  lay off half his restaurant staff one day and then turning around and having the time to teach us how to make old fashion hot air balloons they made as kids (it climbed  to 1000 meters) …This is what makes Mexico a truly wonderful place and I can hardly wait to return..

More school supplies were needed this year than ever before as the federal government had cut all funding but we were still able to help over 500 students get their needed materials as well as assist 2 special needs centers.The interesting thing this year was that teachers were asking for more alternative teaching tools,exercise equipment and books and more books..

The local government in Cabo Correntes that is still reeling from federal funding cuts would like to go ahead with us on  three projects this year if at all possible: an additional classroom in Las Juntas Y Veranos where presently 120 students are in 3 classrooms; Villa del Mar primary where 18 students from grade 1 to 3 are being taught outside; and a new school in Pedro Moreno where there presently is no school for 25 students. These are all growing communities and they see the importance of  good education for their children and would like to assist with the building.

There is a huge push in this area for reading as well as learning english and once again to the rescue came Libros For Learning headed by my good friend Gord Barron. This year they were able to set up 8 more libraries in rural schools donating  over 1000 educational books to this great cause. The donated van was again a great help in assisting with this project.

There was also time for play and even thou I can not swim my girlfriend Allison got me hooked on surfing, next year I will probably be the only surfer with a life jacket on.

MUCHAS GRACIAS; MUY AMABLE To all those good friends that helped to make this happen.

Wishing you all a  Magical 2011

Bob

Friends,

I wanted to report back to everyone who has supported Libros for Learning. It has been a wonderful year for the project and for the kids in Cabo Corrientes.

Four of us spent Thanksgiving week in Cabo Corrientes delivering books and meeting teachers. We delivered 8 libraries to primary school classrooms. Each of the libraries had 125 – 150 books that spanned difficulty levels from first grade to sixth grade. The books each had a library card in a pocket glued into the back cover. We also bought bookshelves this year, because most classrooms lack storage space for new books.  At each stop, we explained how to check out the books from the teacher and how to take good care of books. We stayed at each school for a few hours. We sat with the kids and did partner reading and group read aloud. Read aloud provides such positive enthusiasm for reading. It would be great for the  teachers to spend a little time with read-aloud every day.

We checked on some of the libraries we delivered in the past. The results are encouraging. The kids continue to read them at home and return them to the schools. We will look for the biggest results in 2-3 years among the kids who have had books available to them through their entire schooling. We expect that they will be better readers and more likely to continue their education through 12^th grade.

We also decided to spend time with middle and high school teachers (those schools are called “secundario” and “preparatorio”). In particular, we spent time talking about the new English curriculum in Mexico. As of 2008, English language education is part of the curriculum starting in fifth grade. The government has developed an interactive computer-based curriculum that teaches all levels. The biggest challenges for the teachers are first, that they themselves don’t know English, so they cannot serve as experts; the second is that there is no written material to support the computer lessons. They asked for English language books for the students to read n order to practice.  As a result of these conversations, we have decided to expand the work of Libros for Learning to include English language books for the middle and high schools. We will be very selective about what we provide – the books will have to be at a simple level – 2^nd – 4^thgrade is probably ideal. They must also be engaging and visual. If the themes are too young, they kids will not be interested. I have begun scouting out books that may work for these libraries. If you have thoughts about this, please let me know.

We are trying to set up some “Epal” relationships between high school students here and in Mexico. Two principals in schools down there are very interested. They have the internet capability in the schools and are excited to get started. Spanish teachers in my county are going to try to create that.

The year was a financial success. We raised about $7000 and spent it all on the project. As always, we spent no money on salaries or office space. The labor for organizing and labeling the books was all donated, mostly by schoolkids here in North and South Carolina. Special thanks to Mike Leonard of “Reading is Power.” Mike orders the books and does all the spreadsheet work for Libros for Learning along with continuing his own project.

We had support this year from two Rotary Clubs in North Carolina and are working to expand that relationship in 2011. We also got help from many classrooms who adopted Libros for Learning as their class service projects. Some classes raised money, some bought books, and many of them made bookmarks to accompany the books. In visiting with those classes, we were able to teach them about Mexico and about the challenges their friends in Mexican schools face.

Our goal for 2011 is to deliver 20 new libraries to primary schools and to provide English language libraries to two middle and high schools.

Enough information. If you want to learn more, go to the website, www.librosforlearning.com

Photos from the recent trip are in a Picasa album http://picasaweb.google.com/gbaron1950/LibrosForLearning201002#

Thanks for everything,

Glenn Baron