Located in a rural shoemaking community in the municipality of Trinidad, the El Tigre primary school has 60 students and two teachers, one for grades 1-3 and another for grades 4-6, taught in two separate classrooms. There is also a small standalone Kindergarten room, which the community came together to create a few years ago.
Like most public schools, especially those in rural areas, El Tigre lacks educational resources beyond outdated government-issued textbooks, which are shared amongst students. Creative resources such as books are non-existent, making teachers’ jobs more difficult and student engagement lower.
However, the passion of El Tigre’s educators and the enthusiasm of the student and parent community to lead this project to fruition shows the great value that the community places on education.
Our relationship with this school is a special one. Lisa, one of educate.‘s founders, taught English classes here for a year back in 2014, and by sheer coincidence, the school’s director Profe Evelio is educate. project coordinator Walter’s former primary school teacher!
This library will be inaugurated in 2021.
Preparations in the Community
Preparations in El Tigre began in January 2020. However, when COVID-19 struck and the country went into lockdown, all library planning was put on hold. In April 2021, we were able to recommence our work with the El Tigre community, and the project’s planning is now in full swing.
Right now, the community is working to repair an old storage room which will soon be transformed into a library. They are also working hard as a community to raise a small portion of the funds.
“At the first community meeting it was clear that the mothers and fathers are very interested in developing projects at the school to improve their children’s learning,” says Walter, educate.’s project coordinator. “They are very motivated by the library project, since it will provide so much knowledge and opportunity to the students and the community.”
Books
All of the books we fill our libraries with are high-quality Spanish-language and age-appropriate children’s books, and include plenty of Latin American stories so that children see themselves represented in the books they read. This time, we also had support from the San Pedro Sula International School, where students conducted a book drive to Spanish-language childrens’ books for this library!
