The purpose of this project is to provide electrical power via solar pannels to three schools that are located within the Lancetilla Botanical gardens near Tela, Honduras.We also want to provide solar lanterns to familes of students of the three schools. The area of Tela lacks grid electricity which makes it difficult for the students to be educated and for their families to complete tasks when it is dark out.
The Josefa Lastiri Morazan school is located adjacent to the Botanical garden. The school serves 60 K-5 students during the week and 45 6-9 students on weekends. The Esduela Lempira school is about a 30 minute hike from the botanical garden and serves 45 K-5 students. The third school is Escuela Jose Trinidad Cabanas located about a 25 minute walk from the gardens and also serves about 45 K-5 students. None of these schools have electricity and so rely on natural light. During the rainy season natural light is not bright and so the students can only go to school during the brightest part of the day. These students have the same situation in their homes which makes it almost impossible to do nightly homework. Many of these students travel long distances to attend school and often have to walk to and from school in the dark. This provides the potential for safety concerns to the students without proper lighting. Also, access to solar power will enable these schools to eventually have the ability to have computers,tablets and other electronic dependent educational devices.This will give the schools a foundation for future development of educational programs and collaborations between schools within the area, the country and the world.
The Greeley Centennial, Greeley after Hours and Craig Rotary are collaborating this year to build an addition to the Josefa Lastiri Morazan school. This project was initiated by the Dos Rios Elementry school in Evans Co that has been doing projects with the schools since 2013. A teacher at Dos Rios grew up in the Tela area and still has family there. Agroup of teachers and Rotarians are heading down the Tela in late June to work on the addition and make contact with local Rotary clubs in Tela.
This Solar project will be a collabortion between the Craig Rotary, Greeley After Hours and Dos Rios school. We have plans of going down either during the schools Thanksgiving or Spring breaks and it trip will be tied in with the Greeley Centennial project of suppling furniture and equipment to the schools. Members of the Dos Rios school and all three Rotary clubs will work on both projects during this trip.
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