Centro Educativo Evangelico Vida Y Poder, San Miguel
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School classrooms are located under the church and in a separate building on the other side of the church.
Once this was just a church on a hilltop. Now a school and a medical clinic complement the church. FFP mission teams and members of the Iglesia de Dios Pentecostal M.I. church built the school from 2002-2005. Future plans include constructing a computer room and a library that will be shared by the school and the community, and a separate building for the medical clinic.
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Children at recess on the new playground, playing with Kristin Hamner.
Until this school was built, none of the children had an opportunity to attend school in their community. The public school is too distant and lies across a major thoroughfare. Now more than 80 children in preschool to 6th grade attend school each weekday morning. This school year, their Physical Education classes are held on a level surface instead of an uneven dirt playground, after Foundation for Peace and church members leveled it in July, 2005, and paved it in August, 2005, to make it safe. The classrooms contain tables and chairs for the younger children, while the 3rd to 6th graders sit in desks.
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Kristin teaching.
The parents provide the tuition here, which does not adequately cover the teachers' salaries. Often the small amount requested is more than parents can pay. The government has accredited this school, though it provides no support. The teachers teach all subjects, using primarily a chalkboard and chalk. Not every teacher has books. They work for little, yet gladly teach and clean! The children receive instruction in English once a week from Kristin Hamner, a Foundation for Peace volunteer.
A local teenage girl, who attends a public high school in the afternoon, assists the teachers. She works to earn the fare needed to take the long bus ride each day for a few hours of high school equivalent instruction. She is a rarity, considered extremely fortunate in her community to have the opportunity to continue her education into high school.
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Typical classroom needing educational materials
Many students have notebooks, pencils, and simple school supplies. They lack textbooks, library books, and other tools for learning such as math tools, reference books and computers. The children are not well fed, and they would benefit from a free breakfast or lunch program.
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Dr. Culver, Nurse Leanidas Manzueta, Nurse Alloway and Dr. Polanco in the medical clinic
The Foundation is addressing some of these needs through Dominikids: Child Sponsorship Program. Sponsors pay the child's tuition easing the parents' burden and ensuring the children stay in school, even when their parents cannot afford to pay. If you are interested in sponsoring a child in San Miguel, please return to home and click on Help Educate a Child. The school has the capacity for 25 more children, when more sponsors are available..
The school is just one of the improvements the FFP has been able to effect in this community. One room of the school is currently used as a medical clinic. Dr. Polanco and Nurse Leanidas Manzueta are paid by the FFP to provide medical care 5 days a week to all residents in the surrounding communities.
The school's current needs include:
- At least 3 internet-ready computers
- Fluorescent light bulbs for classrooms
- Bookshelves
- Books (in Spanish)
- Teacher's desks and chairs
- Tables with chairs for students
- Educational games (in Spanish)
- Screens for windows
- Sports equipment
- Lunch program
If you are interested in providing for these needs, please email Wendy Buttner at wendy@foundationforpeace.org. Monetary donations to help obtain these items for the school can be made at the Ecommerce section of this website.