El Zonte, El Salvador is a small beach town about 30 minutes northwest of La Libertad
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We were fortunate enough to tour the school with Antonio, a Council Member for the Community Development Board. He introduced us to the principal, and it was a great experience learning about education in El Salvador.
Like all of the schools we’ve seen, their needs are great and varied. From the basics of having better desks for their kindergardeners and a razor fence to protect their school from vandals and thieves, to profesional development so that someone…anyone…on their campus can maintain a computer lab for the students.
As it is now, the 12 outdated computers gather dust behind three pad-locked gates that are never opened.
Nonetheless, public education is free for El Salvadorian children through 9th grade, and it was so wonderful to see all of the smiling children and meet their dedicated teachers.
We are off to Nicaragua next, but we are really looking forward to getting to our community in Playa Avellanas, Costa Rica so that we can begin to build a lasting relationship with our local school there. For now, we must be satisfied with the small token of donating school supplies thanks to your contributions to The Shine Project Foundation.