A handful of members from Santa Maria Rotary South recently returned from a trip to La Paz, Mexico, where they checked in with students and teachers at a rural school the club supports.
Rotary South decided to form an international bond with Colonia Diana Laura School and a La Paz-based Rotary Club, Bahia de La Paz Club Rotario, after attending a conference on poverty in 2004.
“A lot of people forget that it’s called Rotary International,” Rotary South member Ken Parker said. “Every club is supposed to do something international.”
For the past several years, a partnership of Rotary clubs has been working together to improve educational and economic opportunities for the students and staff members at the school. Some major projects have included expanding the library from one shelf of damaged books to several shelves of high-quality reading materials and constructing a shade structure under which the children could participate in classes.
“The shade structure is really important because of the burning heat down there,” Parker said. “It’s like being in Las Vegas without air conditioning.”
The clubs have also been providing scholarships to allow the children to attend secondary school down in the city of La Paz.
Up in the mountains, Parker explained, the students only receive instruction through sixth grade at rural schools like Diana Laura. Most of the families can’t afford additional schooling. Rotary South has started paying the children’s educational fees.
“For $350 a year, we can send the kids down the hill to junior high or high school,” Parker said. “That’s honestly less than I spend at Starbucks each year.”
While on their trip to La Paz, the Rotary South members visited another rural school about eight miles away from Diana Laura. Via de Guadalupe School, Parker said, “quite simply, broke our hearts.”
Three of the school’s four toilets are broken; the facility’s electricity comes via extension cord from a local woman’s house when she can spare it; and the students have no state-provided equipment, supplies, or food—they can purchase sweets and soda from a local woman for lunch. Local government only has money to pay for the two teachers’ salaries, which is approximately $150 per year for each person.
Rotary South’s plan is to continue supporting Diana Laura School to create a model for other rural schools, and to provide the staff and parents at Via de Guadalupe the supplies to transform their school as well.
Parker said Santa Marians who would like to contribute to the cause can do one of the following:
• Donate sewing machines that are in good working order. The machines are given to mothers in jail and in the villages to give them employable skills to support their families.
• Donate funds toward the secondary school scholarships.
• Travel to the school sites in La Paz to help build shade structures or dining areas.
Rotary Club Santa Maria South meets Mondays at 6 p.m. at the Santa Maria Inn.
For more information, contact Parker at 478-2662.
This article appears in Mar 1-8, 2012.