Manuel de Jesus School

Facts

-    Community: Reina del Cisne

-    Nearest city: Tena

-    Province: Napo

-    Number of students: 27

-    Age range: 3-12

-    Number of teachers: 1

-    Number of people in community: 74

-    Average income per person: less than $120 per month

Brief History

Manuel de Jesús School was first founded in 1985 and was originally funded by the local families. Most people in the local community make their living through agriculture of coffee and cocoa. In recent years these crops have fallen significantly in price and the school has also been damaged significantly when the local river flooded. 90% of the adults only have a primary school education and as such are unable to find alternative work and so they have continued to farm. The drop in income from agriculture has meant the school is struggling for adequate facilities and the children lack educational resources.

What we’ve done so far:

October 2008

Through a shoebox appeal in August 2008, a large quantity of school resources were gathered and we realised during our trip that we had managed to gather so much that we should look for a third school to help. We arranged for one of our Ecuador helpers to visit the community of Reina del Cisne with the supplies in October 2008. Children were given resources including:

  • Pens, pencils, crayons and paints.
  • Notebooks and paper
  • Rubbers, pencil sharpeners
  • Toys
  • Sports equipment including balls, rackets and skipping ropes.

Christmas 2008

We arranged for one of our Ecuador helpers to purchase a few small Christmas presents such as toys and sweets for the children with some of the money we have raised.

April 2009

We visited the school for the first time and met the children and their families. We distributed additional resources and asked each the children to draw us a picture of some aspect of their lives such as their family. As with Republica de Francia school we hope to use these pictures to help with our future fundraising.

The school would like a computer and additional electricity in order to have enough power to run a computer. Additionally the school caters for two disabled pupils and would like any additional equipment that would help the two children.

August – September 2009

As a result of our fundraising we were able to do the following:
- Provided a Laptop and printer, as well as a battery converter to enable the solar panel to power these.
- For each child: pair of Wellies, a rucksacks, pair of flipflops, two school shirts
- For each child all the stationery they need for the school year including pens, pencils, colouring pencils, ruler, rubber, pencil sharpener,
- Football

Unfortunately the battery for the solar panels was damaged, so the school asked us to help them buy a new one during the next year.