Food & fruit for primary schools in Latin America

I hope all is well. It has been a great few months on the projects thanks to your donations as we continue to supply classroom materials to our four hundred primary school scholars as governmental supplies run out in Guatemala. The families simply don’t have the money to replace them and the children risk dropping out of school. Mother’s Day was celebrated in all the schools allowing our material scholarship students to really get involved. 

Gaspar is continuing to visit remote communities around the lake to make sure we are reaching as many children in need as we can. He is also helping out in the classes. By being present regularly in all the schools where our scholarship students attend we can keep track of their progress.

Water is becoming ever more scarce in the communities where we work around the lake due to the changing and erratic climate. We are looking at maximising water harvesting in all the schools which we support to take advantage of the rains when they come.

The problem is compounded with years of under-investment in infrastructure and most families now collect their water from the lake, which is generally contaminated and unfit for drinking. We purchased water filters for one of the schools which we support and will aim to buy more for the other schools in the future.

The school is back up and running in Perú and we have had a great couple of months. The classrooms only suffered minimal damage after the recent unprecedented storms which wreaked havoc in the region.

As we do each year we have provided the personalised text and work books to all the children in all six grades for the year. These include maths and literacy. As there is only one teacher for two grades this means the children can get on with work whilst the teacher is occupied with their other class. They can also take the books away each day to do homework.

The school was given a new paint job for the first time in a few years and the students got involved in the potato harvest which is helping to boost the daily food programme.

Over the years we have taken in students whose families have migrated to Arequipa in a desperate bid to find work though have been thwarted by lack of education and available jobs and end up in the outskirts where our school is situated eeking out a living in the chakras (Incan-irrigated arable farms) when seasonal work is available. We recently welcomed two new students who spent almost a week travelling overland with their family from Bolivia.

Sadly due to the current geopolitical situation in the Middle East and the subsequent steep rises in airfares the participants for our 20th Anniversary Challenge next month have diminished, with just three of us taking it on (luckily we bought flights early!). The annual Impington School trip has also been postponed. Obviously the lack of fundraising that both trips would have generated will affect the projects and demonstrates how decisions made in one part of the world can have negative impacts in other parts of the world. It also highlights once again that it is the poorest people who inadvertently suffer when they have nothing to do with the decision-making. 

The school year is coming to an end in Ecuador and our local Phoenix teachers have done a fantastic job. Over the years we have helped local University students with their educational costs in exchange for them helping out in the school and this year there were more graduations!

After twenty years working in Urcusiqui and with the government now taking on a more progressive role with primary education with more teachers and university students helping out in the classrooms we can now concentrate on new projects and communities. The income generated from the sustainable plans we have put in over the years where we have worked will help to cover any of the school’s extra costs moving forwards sustainably. 

We are now able to expand our work to other communities with an emphasis on students and families with varying disabilities as well as all levels of education.

Paulina and David, who lost part of his leg during last year's protests, will be playing a major role with our new projects with mothers and students with varying disabilities living in extreme poverty to help with education, health and daily food for the family including elderly relatives.

We aim to introduce small sustainable income plans which can be undertaken at home for each family to help with extra income.One such plan includes rearing and harvesting crickets as a cheap and easy source of protein which can be eaten at home as well as sold. We will be trialling this over the coming months and will keep you posted.We will also help with school supplies for students so they can remain in education.

Thank you so much for your continued support and we’ll keep you posted in a couple of months!

Cheers

I hope all is well. Thanks to your continued support and regular donations to the projects all our schools have had a great start to 2026. A really exciting opportunity for the projects starts today (Tuesday 17th March) with GlobalGiving matching all donations up to $50 (£38) by 50% from 10am EDT until 10pm EDT on Friday 20th March whilst funds last. Please be aware that the matching funds do run out quite quickly so please donate today or early tomorrow to take full advantage. Also, the matching only applies once per individual donor.

Classes in Guatemala are underway for our one hundred scholarship students in secondary school and college and also for our four hundred primary school students, many of whom have varying disabilities, with their classroom materials. 

We continue to hand out the classroom material scholarships as more and more families are identified with needs and the government resources supplied in January run out.

All the families we support with scholarships and educational materials live in extreme poverty. Most have no electricity or running water and zero protection from the elements. With the mid-year rainy seasons becoming more unpredictable and intense this can cause many houses to be washed away leaving the families with nothing.

By being in school they not only receive an education though can also receive school meals provided by the government. The key is to get them in school in the first place which we are striving to do. We hope to enhance the food programme over the coming months if we can. 

Our project manager Gaspar, who is Tz’utujil Maya, has spent the last few months visiting the surrounding communities to talk with families and find out more about their current situation. This was followed by meetings in the schools to talk about parental and student responsibilities concerning education and getting them signed up with our scholarship programme.

We are gearing up to the start of our twentieth new school year in Peru this month and as always we will have our local teacher Edy Luz and also be providing the students with individual text and work books. We will also be giving them daily fruit and extra food when needed, depending on what the government sends each month after last year’s cancellation of the national food programme. We also have the vegetables from the garden. The recent rains thankfully didn't affect the families or the school though did cause chaos in the region.

To celebrate our twentieth anniversary we hope to (finally!) build a school kitchen and purchase the necessary equipment and supplies for the food programme. The kitchen is currently tucked away in a small space at one end of a classroom so by building a separate spacious kitchen it is obviously great for the mums who prepare the food though also for the students who will have a bigger classroom. It’s also good for health and safety obviously and won’t distract the students each day with the tempting smells seeping into the classroom.  

In Ecuador classes are back underway for the second half of the school year which ends in June. We continue to fund three local teachers as well as internet and essential classroom materials. 

Investigations continue to identify new areas of critical need in the region which we will support over the coming years including students with varying disabilities and further education. 

Thank you so much for anything you can donate today as we aim to reach our target and we'll keep you posted on how the school is coming along in the next couple of months.

Cheers