By Rotary Club of Prince Albert

Rotary Club of Prince Albert Helps to Build a Future For Students in Guatemala

Feb 21, 2011 | 12:55 PM

Blanca Hilda School in Gualan, Guatemala has aspirations to become a school of the future within the Guatemalan education system. This dream will, in fact, become a reality because of help from the Rotary Club of Prince Albert.

Rotary is a service club in the broadest sense of the word. They support their community but also look outside of Prince Albert to see where they can be of help.

“Rotary International has a list of programs and projects throughout the world,” says Club President, Harvey Agnew. “We wanted to support a project which would have a permanent and long term effect – a project where we could partner with other organizations to maximize the value of the money we are able to put in.”

Therefore, Rotary Club of Prince Albert hooked up with The Ripple Effect, a Rotarian Program which identifies schools in need of development. The intention is to create a ripple of benefit to an entire community by educating its youth.

The partnership and project was approved by CRCID (Canadian Rotary Collaboration for International Development) which offers matched funding to Rotary Clubs for International Development Programs/Projects through Canadian International Development Agency's (CIDA) contributions, the Ripple Effect Program, D5550 World Community Service Foundation, the Rotary Club of Gualan and the municipality of Gualan.

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The Prince Albert donation of $5,000 was thereby multiplied to more than $12,000.00 Canadian. This will enable the building of two classrooms and the refurbishing of six washrooms at the all-girl school.

Gord and Deb LeMaistre, Chairpersons of the Ripple Effect have reported that since the sod turning in October, 20, one dilapidated building used as a classroom was removed for a net increase of 3 rooms with the construction of 4 new rooms.  The municipality is funding the additional 2 classrooms and also are doing some grading, landscaping and repairs to retaining walls.

Currently, there are more than 450 students, teachers and a devoted principal who have worked at Blanca Hilda for nearly 30 years. The washrooms were in need of repair, with most toilets not working. The construction of the new classrooms and the upgrade to the washrooms will make a significant impact on the education of the students and the impact on the community.

“Working with the Ripple Effect, our club knew we would have a genuine and measurable effect on the people of this community,” says Agnew.