School Supplies

Last year, the Guatemalan government decided to stop charging an annual fee for students to attend school.  Attendance, of course, skyrocketed.  The school at Tierra Linda grew from 100 students to almost 250.  Unfortunately, the government didn't decide to add extra funding for supplies for all these new students, so teachers patch through with what they have.  We had a conversation with Manrique the sixth-grade teacher, and he said that we see them just lecturing or writing on the board, but it's often because they don't have supplies to do much else.

The Tierra Linda teachers gave us a list recently of things that they could really use.  There are sometimes groups that bring supplies for them, but often they are not the supplies that the school needs most.

If you're coming to visit or wanting to send something, here are the ideas from their list:

• whiteboard markers
• permanent markers
• cardstock and paper, foamboard, construction paper
• scissors, big and small
• crayons
• puzzles
• small staplers
• wall staplers
• paintbrushes
• Legos
• masking tape
• erasers
• soccer balls, basketballs, and volleyballs
• class sets (30) of colouring books or paint-with-water
  

Other than Legos, all of these things are available locally in Pana.  The prices are the same as regular prices in Canada or the US.

A few other things that would be better purchased in Pana:

• laminated posters of the human body, geography, numbers, and the alphabet (all in Spanish, of course)
  
• buckets with covers

The last big box that arrived came via Medrano Express (door-to-door pickup in the US, they provide the boxes, and the box weight doesn't matter).  You can call them at 1-800-328-4963.

You can ship boxes to Mayan Families (Sharon Smart-Poage, Panajachel, Guatemala), write where you want it to go, and they'll get it to them.