St Ann's Primary School opens!

About a month ago, work started on digging the foundations for the new St Ann's primary school. August is the beginning of the mini-dry season so avoiding the worst weather - barring a hurricane of course! The school is being built on land owned by the Diocese, next to the Bishop Desmond Smith Memorial Centre - which is home to Malcolm's "Anglican Theological Institute" and also houses the Diocesan Hurricane centre. So it's also very close to St. Ann's Church.

The decision to start building, and to open the school, was in many ways an act of faith. There is some funding from the Diocese, some from the local Church, and money towards the next stage of the building is promised by the "Social Investment Fund". Beyond that, we are relying on external sponsors and local decisions, and we'll be launching a major fundraising appeal over the next month.
The hope is that we will be ready to open at least part of a school building by September 2009. Meanwhile, we are making the best we can of our temporary home. It isn't easy, as many of the things we would take for granted in the UK just aren't here. We don't even have a blackboard yet! But our new staff are enthusiastic and committed, and we are confident they will do the very best they can.

Meanwhile the school opened for the new term today 1st September. It was a very gentle beginning: by lunchtime we only had a few children. We hope the numbers increase steadily through the week. We have space for up to 50 Infants, and really need to attract enough children if the school is to be viable. The Ministry of Education and the City Council are sure the school is needed - all the other schools in Belmopan are over subscribed. Some classes are full to overflowing, and we know that last year some children were unable to attend school because of the lack of room.

We have advertised in the local press / TV and via strategically placed posters, and now we are relying on word-of-mouth to get the news around that we are open. At the moment the few pupils we have are enjoying a very generous staff-student ratio!
We are able to use some of the resources Malcolm had in place. He has a small office in the building, with a computer (he says: 'a very old computer!') and is happy for our new teachers to use that when he isn't there. We've also been given some books and teaching materials by the Diocese.

We've got chairs and tables (though many of them are rather big for our smallest children), paper and pens, and some reading books. But there is so much we don't have. The teachers are aiming to make a lot of resources themselves.

And, sadly, some aspects of Belizean culture don't help. Bureaucracy here can be a real test of patience! For instance, you might think it would be straightforward to open a bank account for the new school. As the local manager and the headteacher, we thought this would be easy: ask to open an account, show the letter from the Diocese saying who we were and what we were doing, provide ID and signatures ... but no. The person at the bank looked up the rules, and the rules say we need a letter from the School Board. As yet the school doesn't even have a postal address or phone line (difficult without a completed building!) and the school board is the diocesan Education Board. But the bank person would not even discuss it. The bank rules say: letter. No letter, no account. So that was our lunch hour!

Meanwhile, the workers continue to make progress on the foundations. Floor level for the new school is planned to be a foot or so above ground level, which seems to be normal here. When the storms and tempests come, you want some protection from floodwater and storm surges in the town drains. On Ruth's ever-expanding To Do list is a trip to the City Council to find out about laying new footpaths so we don't all end up in 6" water when it rains!!

If you want to know more, do get in touch. We'd love to hear from you, especially if you know a school we could 'twin' with or would like to support us financially. Every little helps!

Thanks for reading.