Inauguration of San Ignacio High School!

Last week on Feb. 27th, we celebrated a huge accomplishment for La Esperanza Granada... the opening of our brand new technical high school in San Ignacio! 

This project has been a long journey, supported by many generous individuals and groups. We broke ground December 31st, 2010, putting up fencing around a plot of land located just down the road from the primary school Nueva Esperanza. Over the years, thousands of dollars and many people have supported the project, from gathering funds to constructing latrines, building classrooms, and painting the buildings. Thanks to all of this hard work, we were able to officially open the high school for the 2012 school year with a class of over 50 students!

We of course celebrated the occasion with much happiness, appreciation, and gratitude! After the ribbon cutting, we welcomed words from early donors to the school, Karen Van Eijk and Tom Daniels as well as the group Amped for Education. Without the early support and enthusiasm of these donors, this project simply could not have gotten off the ground. La Esperanza also sent a deeply felt "thank you" to groups from Westfield State University and Builders Beyond Borders who constructed a total of 7 classrooms for the school! Several school directors also shared kind words about the wonderful opportunity this school represents for the young people of San Ignacio. 

Perhaps the most moving speech came from a parent of one of the students. Many families living in San Ignacio come from circumstances of extreme poverty and need, and education beyond the 6th grade often seems like a lofty goal for children of these families. Hearing this local mother say that this school, a school built entirely from the goodwill of caring individuals, will give her child an opportunity that she thought never possible is what truly makes our work worthwhile. 

With many of our supporters, volunteers, school staff, and the new San Ignacio students present, we wrapped up the ceremony with Nicaraguan folk dancing, local pastry treats, and lots of smiles!

LEG Operations Officer, Pauline Jackson, and Delegada del Ministerio de la Educación, Luisa Amanda, at the ribbon cutting ceremony for San Ignacio High School

Our 2012 Ayudantes 

A great turn-out of volunteers, students, and friends of LEG!

You can also find more photos from the event on our Picasa website here!

Location: Granada, Nicaragua

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

House building project Families for Families

Image
Since 2011, La Esperanza Granada is building homes for families in the neighborhood of Nueva Esperanza. This project is called ‘Families for Families’ and is part of a school attendance incentive program. We reward the families whose children have good school attendance. We want to thank them for caring about their children’s education. So far 37 homes have been built and we are planning on building 2 more very soon. We renovate or rebuild houses for families who live in bad conditions. The houses only have plastic sheeting or corrugated iron for walls. Many of the homes don’t have a toilet or a shower. There usually is one in the neighborhood for many people to use, but it doesn’t give them much privacy. We visited three families in the neighborhood of Nueva Esperanza. One of them recently had their home rebuild. The two other families are next in line, and they are excited! A member of the family who recently had their home renovated says it made their li...
Read more

A Big Day Out

The end of year tour might be second nature to primary school children in Europe and North America. But, here in Nicaragua, such treats were unheard of around Granada until La Esperanza Granada began to bring the children from half a dozen schools on annual excursions three years ago. CIARAN TIERNEY joined the second graders from the Angela Morales and Juan Diego schools for the first of this year's excursions, which will take place on 12 separate days. My God . . . what excitement! As the big, old American styled bus pulled up outside the gates of the Angela Morales school, on the road between Granada and Rivas, the sense of anticipation in the air was palpable. As the 11 youngsters piled on board, even their teacher seemed to be excited by the prospect of a day out and a break from the schoolbooks. Joining us were a group of young volunteers, from Peru, Germany, England, France, and the United States, reflecting the variety of nationalities who come to work with La Esperanza a...
Read more

Why we left the classrooms: by Pauline

Image
One of the hazards of being here and involved in all that is happening is the tendency to forget that not everybody knows, and how important it is to effectively communicate what is going on to our supporters.  I guess there have been bits and pieces in the newsletter, but not a full explanation, and especially not sufficient for someone like yourself who is out there gathering more supporters for La Esperanza Granada.  So I will try and explain in a concise fashion, and hopefully this will help both update your 'spiel' and offer answers to any questions that anyone may have. Our move to the learning centers from the primary schools was planned, however it progressed more rapidly than we had expected as we had groups who came and built our third and fourth centers.  The first small center in fact we were running for a couple of years, and had taken it over from another group called Amped who were unable to continue.  We later, through Amped, received the fun...
Read more