Our goals for 2025
We will continue with our local teacher and supply individual textbooks for the children as well as provide daily fruit and gas for the meals the government sends the products for each month.
We will also fund cultural celebrations during the year including the end of year trip to the beach.
Vegetables from our Plan Huerta (vegetable garden) and the new brick oven will enhance the daily diet of the children with extra produce being shared with the families in their homes.
How we are achieving our goals in 2025
News and photos to come each month…
How we achieved our goals in 2024
December 2024
The school year comes to a close with graduations and end-of-year celebrations with dance and food cooked in the new oven we built.
The students made traditional clothes out of recycled materials from the classroom as part of the “día del logro” when they show what they have learned during the year including acting out moments of history.
We undertook our annual trip to the coast with the children and some mothers to celebrate the end of the school year. They live in the desert at 2,200m (7,000ft) all year round with little water and certainly not enough to immerse themselves so the day is a welcome respite, especially for those who have never seen, or been in, the sea before.
The vegetable garden’s final harvest will be distributed amongst all the families so they have fresh produce over the holidays. Potatoes will be planted in the meantime in time for the new school year.
November 2024
We celebrated our 18th anniversary working in Maldonado with plenty of dance and food, including chicken cooked in the new brick oven we built earlier in the year.
Now we have the oven the students are learning how to bake. Recently they made t’anta wawa (guaguas de pan) which is a traditional sweet bread to celebrate Day of the Dead and is eaten throughout November.
The word wawa or guagua is Quechua for baby. The bread is shaped like a baby or doll and represents those who have died and are being remembered.
October 2024
The students take an active role in the school vegetable garden. They learn about drip-irrigation, ground maintenance and the cycles from planting to harvest.
August 2024
When the Spanish met the Incas.
As part of the curriculum the students learn about the history of Perú and then act it out in front of the school. All the costumes were made by the students using old vegetable bags amongst other items.
July 2024
Twenty-eight students and three teachers were involved in this year’s Impington International College, Cambridge, United Kingdom, trip. Thanks to their fundraising and hands-on work we were able to accomplish so much over their ten day stay.
The final terrace of the vegetable garden was cleared of rocks and levelled out. Drip-irrigation was installed and vegetable seedlings were planted, including onion, beetroot, lettuce and cabbage.
The temporary large stone steps between the main school and the classroom which was built on the first Impington trip were replaced (lots of rock which was removed from the vegetable garden went into the concrete mix.)
We used part of the funds raised to build an oven in the school. This will be used primarily for baking bread and for larger-scale school meals and celebrations.
Fifteen students received one-on-one teaching in maths, languages, English and art. The school storeroom and library was also given a good clean and sort.
A large mural was painted to celebrate the relationship with the school and Impington International College.
As is tradition the trip was finished off with dance and food.
June 2024
Preparations and material purchases are underway for the annual Impington International College trip from Cambridge, UK. We aim to increase the size of the school vegetable garden with drip-irrigation, install steps to the bottom classroom, build a brick oven, put in a new school entrance, paint and undertake one-on-one teaching.
May 2024
Mother’s Day was celebrated this month with folkloric dance, gifts and food.
The day is a welcome respite for the mothers whose gruelling irregular work under the sun from dawn ’til dusk in the chacras (irrigated agricultural fields) is only available for a few days during each crop cycle.
Since we started the projects in 2006 we have supplied the children with daily fruit. We also buy gas each month so they can receive a hot meal with the basic supplies the government provides. Add to this the vegetables that we now grow in the vegetable garden and we are making sure they receive nutritious food each day they are at school.
April 2024
We have installed water filters in the school so the children have access to drinking water all the time. The water in the community, which is only available for a couple of hours in the early morning each day when we fill the storage tanks, isn’t drinkable.
Each year we provide every student with their own workbooks for language comprehension and grammar (Spanish) and maths so they can follow lessons and work individually when the teacher takes another class.
We only have one teacher per two grades and the academic levels of the children vary greatly as more students join the school with limited prior teaching.
By having their own workbooks they can get on with set work at their own pace when the teacher is not available.
As part of their education the students are taught all the aspects of agriculture in our school vegetable garden. Here they are learning about maintenance and placement of the drip-feed irrigtation system before sewing.
We continue to provide fresh fruit daily for the children to supplement their diet. We have seen remarkable positive results with their annual medical check-ups which the doctors confirm is due to the daily fruit and the vegetables from the school garden.
March 2024
We continue to welcome the next generation of children into the school. Silvia was one of our first students graduating 6th grade in 2007. Her brother Sadán, shown here, graduated in 2016 and is about to finish secondary school.
The new school year gets back underway with more children entering grades one and two as increased numbers of families migrate from the interior of the country (the altiplano and jungle).
How we achieved our goals in 2023
December 2023
To mark the end of the school year we finally restarted the annual beach trip for the students and mothers which for the majority was the first time they had seen (and been in) so much water as they live in the desert at 2,400m. The last trip was in 2019 with subsequent visits not possible due to the pandemic and last year’s protests. The new school year will start in March next year.
November 2023
The students and teachers undertook a night-time “antorcha” (essentially carrying candles inside crepe-paper figures…!) around the community to remind the parents to sign up their children for free education in the school next year.
The school took a break from classes and preparations for the upcoming final exams to celebrate seventeen years of our work in Maldonado with traditional dance and of course cake!
Our local teacher Edy Luz has been with us from the beginning and must take huge credit for everything that she has achieved over the years with the children’s education, especially during the pandemic.
October 2023
The children’s daily food from the government continues to be augmented with the vegetables from the garden. We pay for the gas to heat the food aswell as buying fruit each day.
Plenty of classroom work going on as we enter the final weeks of the school year. We have made large strides forwards since the pandemic as the children are still learning topics from the years they lost.
September 2023
600 trees have been planted so far in Guatemala as part of this year’s reforestation programme which aims to offset the carbon footprint from our work in Latin America. This includes flights taken by participants for charity challenges and the Impington International College trip as well as transport in-country. 1,700 trees will be planted in total.
A good harvest! With the extended Plan Huerto we have been able to provide more nutritious food for the children each day with extra being shared with the local families.
We have taken Pedro on part-time to help around the school and especially the vegetable garden. He lives in the community.
July 2023
The annual community work trip with Impington International College, Cambridge, UK was undertaken with twenty-seven students fundraising and working in the school.
One of the major projects was the funding and building of three more toilets for the children. Before there was one toilet for the teachers and one for the students.
Work was also undertaken to double the size of the school vegetable garden (Plan Huerta) and install drip-irrigation, dig a long trench and seal the bottom wall from dampness and concrete a new pathway outside the classroom that Impington International College funded and built in 2022 (see below).
The school’s first orchard was planted with drip-irrigation. In a few years the children should be enjoying avocados, apples and peaches. In the photo you can see the installation of the drip-irrigation system for the extended Plan Huerta.
Fifteen children were also given essential one-on-one teaching in maths and languages as well as art and sport.
As is custom, the trip was finished off with a party with the children’s parents and grandparents also invited to enjoy food and folkloric dance.
In the time away from the school the students enjoyed a couple of hikes in the surrounding area including the Salinas salt flats (seeing plenty of vicuñas) and following the River Chili from the base of the Chachani volcano into Arequipa.
Besides from the visit of the Impington International College students, the Inca Trail Charity Challenge was undertaken with some great funds raised for the projects in Latin America. If you are interested in joining us on a Charity Challenge in 2024 please follow this link.
May 2023
Mothers’ Day was celebrated with a display of folkloric dance by the children as well as gifts and a hearty lunch.
The Lost City Charity Challenge was undertaken in Colombia raising funds for our projects in Latin America, trekking a total of 105km (65 miles) during the week. For information on our charity challenges in 2024 please follow this link.
April 2023
Break-time in the school.
The students and teachers celebrated Semana Santa (Easter) in the school with plays and food.
March 2023
Classes got back underway for the new school year with a small party laid on for the children. As in each year we have supplied each student with their own textbooks which they can work from during the year.
The new classroom built by Impington International College in 2022 has been inaugurated bringing our total number of classrooms to four.
The school vegetable garden is ready for its third harvest which will provide daily food for the children this year. We plan to increase the size later in the year.
February 2023
Summer school came to an end with cake! It has been very successful, despite the political and social chaos, with the children catching up a lot and now prepared for the new school year which starts in March.
January 2023
Summer school was held during the month despite the political and social crisis gripping the country to bring the children up to speed before classes start back up once again in March.
Harvest begins on our second cycle of Plan Huerto in the school as we trial different types of vegetables and herbs. Spinach, onions, corriander and tomatoes have all been successful.
