Food & fruit for primary schools in Latin America

As 2016 enters its final two months we cast our eyes forwards to 2017 and beyond with a plan to sustain our fruit program with the local families of all the children in our schools in Guatemala, Honduras, Ecuador and Perú. Our aim is to provide each family with a fruit tree which will continue to provide for the whole family for years to come. The initial costs will be $2,000 to put this into place, on top the $10,000 we have budgetted for out daily food and fruit programs for 2017. Depending on available area in the family homes we would like to increase this program whilst also planting fruit trees in the schools themselves so any donation made to this page will also go towards our new fruit tree scheme in 2017 so many thanks in advance.

This years daily food and fruit program has been a huge succes and many thanks to all of you who have donated to help make this happen. With all the problems in the world these days, many of which directly affect the projects, every little helps and your donations go such a long way - many thanks indeed!

It has been a fantastic few months across the Phoenix Projects. Our local teachers, many of whom started teaching this year and who previously were students at our schools and who we helped through college, are settling well into their roles. The reinforcement teachers we pay for this year have paid immediate dividends with the average grades in the classes rising and the children lagging behind have mostly been brought up to speed.

One of the areas we have been focusing on this year across The Phoenix Projects is the implementation of sustainable plans, including cows, chickens, weaving, fish and small businesses. Not only do these provide income for the schools’ running costs for years to come (including the daily food and fruit) they also provide much needed employment in the communities as income from the plans is reinvested into future plans and also shared between the families and the school. We employ almost 60 people full-time directly across Phoenix and the Plans increase this number to almost 200 which is phenomenal for the local economy and obviously the families as they now can provide for their families with an over-riding pride that they did it for themselves.

Daily food and fruit is crucial - we monitor the weights and height of the children and there has been a definitive improvement in the children's BMI - it is by no means perfect and there is still a long way to go though we are on the right track. Hopefully we will be setting up school vegetable gardens, funds permitting, over the coming months to add a few more ingredients to the daily food program!

Thank you all for your generous support in the past and hopefully in the future – all your donations are helping to build a fantastic and sustainable future for the communities in which we work.

Cheers

Links:

• Sustainable Projects