Guatemala Green Apple Day - ABC Project
Guatemala Green Apple Day - ABC Project
Throughout the years the Guatemalan public education system has suffer from different deficiencies both, in infrastructure and in quality of information taught to children. Having this in mind, we chose to focus on school sponsorships for our Green Apple Day of Service initiatives. This year, we selected to work with the "Luz Figueroa Guillén" School because we believe in the importance on supporting students in our local community and proximity to our GBC's office.
The "Luz Figueroa Guillén" school is one of a kind. It teaches kids from ages 4 to 6, which in some cases, come from low-income families and others come from the orphanage “Virgen de Fátima”, proving to be a school that not only cares for kids in their district but also for kids that are unlikely to get good quality education. This school despite from being in the public school range is in greater conditions than must kindergartens, yet it was lacking some features that would help kids from such a young age to develop fine and gross motor skills; which are key to be developed at this point of their lives.
We intend to make this school the BEST, most sustainable and environmentally-friendly school in the city as a way to set an example for other public schools in Guatemala. We believe setting a green school standard is the most imporant first step to embark on the path of sustainability learning in our education institutions in order to help children to be more responsible, resilient and environmentally-aware.
10
Students attended
3
Staff attended
55
Additional Volunteers attended
100
Students will be impacted this year
Intended impact of project
Impact of project
More impact of project
For the Guatemala Green Building Council, Green Apple Day of Service is an activity we look forward every year. We try our best to help provide today's students with a school that dignifies and increases their desire to learn. This year, we held a foosball tournament to raise funds to purchase much-needed appliances for the school, such as a microphone and speaker. Later in the year, we requested our GBC's members to add their support to Green Apple Day of Service by volunteering their time and donating equipment and materials to meet the school's wish list during the official Green Apple Day (Week) of Service.
Thanks the generous support of our GBC members and individual volunteers, we were able to greatly improve the school's infrastructure. Among the improvements, we successfully changed the bathroom's appliances, installed bathroom tiles, added a school bell, created a mural on the outside wall of the school and the entire playground area with low VOC paint, upgraded the basketball court, planted a kitchen garden from which the kids can obtained fresh produce that they learned to grow. We also donated 25 bags of cement to build an exterior wall, built an outdoor classroom with recycled wood pallets, and established punto verde or recycling "green spot" for the students to learn how to properly separate their residues. We also organized the students and their parents to clean the entire school grounds - from the floors to the garden areas and the ceilings inside and around the school neighborhood, as well as improved their safety signage materials