Back to Rotary Club of Placencia
Keller Williams in Belize is pairing up with Rotary Club of Placencia to raise $12,000 to create a new Library and Resource Center at St Johns School in the Placencia Village. Believe in Belize is assisting them with raising funds for this project.
2024 Update: Project Completed
 |  |
 |  |
Project Details
Statistically, the Public Primary School in Placencia is seeing the Standard 6 Student (US 8th grade) leaving primary school with a US 2nd grade reading level. Reading programs in Belize are critical to the future success of the children in Belize. Having a Library that both students and teachers are excited about is paramount to it’s success.
The Public Primary School in Placencia has an enrollment of 234 students (2023). At present the school library is a small, wooden building that is badly in need of repair. St Johns School in Placencia Village has offered one of the classrooms to house the new Library and Resource Center but it’s in need of repair and upgrading in order to be a good environment for a library in the tropics. The decision was made to invest in the school classroom which is concrete hurricane shelter instead of renovating the old wooden school.
Funds raised in this project will be used to repair and paint all walls, ceilings, and floors, build new bookshelves, build benches and chairs, put in new windows, install AC unit, new ceiling fans, lights and upgrade the electrical. The stretch goals would be to add 2 Laptops, 8 Kindles and Library Software to catalog books for checkout and check-in.
Estimate cost for this project is $12,000 USD to include the repair and upgrades as well as the Laptops and Kindles. The goal would be to raise these funds prior to the summer so when the children are out of school the repairs can begin and be completed prior to schools reopening in late August.
Reading programs in Belize are critical to the future success of the children in Belize. Having a Library that both students and teachers are excited about is paramount to its success.
Less than 50% of students entering pre-school have books in their homes and parents rarely have a high school education. In Belize, 8 per cent of children do not complete primary school and 31 per cent do not complete secondary school. Rotary Club of Placencia has put a lot of effort into the digital reading intervention program before and during COVID and has been able to level up students an average of 3 reading levels per school year.
