The birth of a school

Once in a while, you hear a story that inspires you, and makes you believe that you can truly make a difference in people's lives. This is one such story.

And it begins with a Arequipinean lady named Ruth, who just happened to be passing through Pueblo Maldonado, one of the Pueblos Jovenes. She noticed a bunch of kids hanging about, and asked them why they weren't in school. They told her their school wasn't safe, and she asked to see it.

What she saw was a rickety, broken box peering over the edge of a hill, threatening to fall at any moment. Armed with this visual, and having an under-utilized community building that would be a fine candidate for a new school site, she approached the local community and requested permission to use the community hall to teach their kids.

And so it was. So for a few years, Victor Maldonado was a single, simple room in which Ruth taught grades 1 through 6. There is only so much that one person can do, and during the early years much of the kids' education was copying content from a blackboard while Ruth wrote for the next class. But the seeds of an education had been planted.

(This is the view from the fields in front of Pueblo Maldonado. Our school is the aqua building towards the far right of the picture)

Since then, GVI has adopted Victor Maldonado as one of 2 local schools for their program. They have added another room to the school, and employed a 2nd teacher to work there. Plus, with the volunteers helping out too, the kids are able to get much more individual attention, and the level of literacy continues to grow.

(This is me trying to inspire Jonathan to do his homework)

But none of this would have been, had it not been for a single act of one person.

Chris