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Like most public schools, especially those in rural areas, El Tigre lacked educational resources beyond outdated government-issued textbooks, which were shared amongst students. Creative resources such as books were non-existent prior to the school’s library being inaugurated, making teachers’ jobs more difficult and student engagement lower.
The passion of El Tigre’s educators and the enthusiasm of the student and parent community led this project to fruition, demonstrating the great value that the community places on education.
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 mid-2021, we were able to recommence our work with the El Tigre community, and the library was inaugurated in March 2022.
The community worked to clean out and repair an old storage room, which was transformed into the library. They also worked hard as a community to raise a small portion of the funds for the project.
“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!
Mural Painting
The community painting process is an important part of educate. library projects. In El Tigre, students, teachers and family members gathered for two days to paint the library space, together with educate. Project Coordinator Walter Dubon.
The village of El Tigre is known for the large Tiger mural in the park, and students decided to recreate it on their library’s walls!
Using the Library
The El Tigre school has integrated the library into their school schedule and students visit the library at least once a week.
educate. 