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Verapaz Primary School (Nicaragua)

Open: June 2011

Number of Students 35Village Population 129

At the end of a long and rocky dirt road, spread along the sides of the rolling hills near El Tuma is the community of Verapaz.

Because it is so isolated, it hasn’t benefitted from the presence of the many non-governmental organizations operating in the Municipality of San Ramón, as much as some other communities. The houses, sometimes patched together with rough tree branches and plastic, reflect this. Maybe this is why the people in Verapaz were so excited about the possibility of having a real school in their community, where the preschoolers would have their own space to grow and learn, and the older kids would have enough space and school desks that they wouldn’t have to sit on the floor or in the doorway.

The people in Verapaz are mostly subsistence farmers, growing corn and beans. About half of the families in Verapaz also grow coffee to supplement their family income. Perhaps because they do not have very much in a material sense, they are accustomed to working together for the common good. When the muddy floor in the school became unbearable, they organized a group of people to request help from another organization. The organization provided the cement, and the community members organized teams to carry sand from the river in sacks. And when a landslide blocked the road to the community, a group of 5 people went to the mayor’s office to demand assistance.

The school where the children received class was a small wooden structure with two small doors and a tiny wooden window. It received the direct morning sun, and the tin roof and the lack of ventilation made it unbearably hot. A tiny section of the building was blocked off for the 10 preschoolers, and the other 40 children squeezed into the other side. Although 50 children were enrolled at the beginning of the school year, attendance would always dwindle over the course of the year, as the children and parents became discouraged by the discomfort and lack of adequate space and school desks.

This project was completed through our partnership with Seeds of Learning.