Creating Educational Opportunity for Maya Children

Thanks to generous donations from our supporters, parents and teachers of Panabaj Primary School are busily working on repairing the facilities so that their children can learn in a safe space.

Work supported to date includes the construction of 2 containment walls to protect the school from future mudslides, a gate for the main entrance, a new stove for the kitchen, and a storage area for school supplies. We also repaired classroom doors that were salvageable. In the coming weeks we will be installing doors and windows for the remaining classrooms, putting the final touches on the containment walls, and installing electricity so that the classrooms will have light.

Next we are planning to paint both inside and outside the classrooms with the help of a group of volunteers from the Cole Family Foundation.

Parents and teachers are thrilled to be back in a space designed for teaching. One teacher told us, “We no longer wreck our lungs trying to be heard over noise from neighboring classrooms like we did in the provisional school where the walls were just plywood.” Juan Ramirez, the president of the Parents Association, told us “The children, parents, and teachers are very happy to be back in the school.”