The facilities of the pre-school and kindergarden at the Escuela para el Futuro are finished!

The building is ready to welcome 100 pupils to entrance their educational-career in September.

Tue, 09/24/2019 - 14:15

Midst in the shabby slums of San Juan de Abajo, a kindergarden and a pre-school was built from scratch. The new building gives children a sound and safe learning environment.

After an intense time of construction, the building shines in splendour. With the new infrastructure we want to enable children from the very poor region of San Juan de Abajo to attend school from the very first school level, which is kindergarden in Mexico. The new school building is much more than just a school infrastructure: the architecture is modern and the construction work was carried out in a high quality. Children do not only get a place to attend school, but a place to feel safe, secure and have a beneficial learning environment.

Although the construction phases went according to plan and the architects followed the plans and were very professional, there were other difficulties and problems along the way.

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Troubles during the construction period

Architects had to pay a police patrol to survey the site as the watchmen (usually a couple of guys) unfortunately weren’t enough to deter the „material-robbers“ during the night. After a couple of incidents, some neighbours and parents of the children committed to joining forces with the police to help them protect the site and keep the materials safe from robbers. There was even a shooting incident, during which one of the windows got smashed by a bullet. Thankfully, no one was hurt.

This was also the reason why materials couldn‘t be kept on site and had to be delivered in several batches.

Some materials, such as the solar panels, aluminium for the windows and doors and the furniture, were hard to get hold of, as they had to come from further afield. Access to the school was a serious issue when it rained, as trucks could not access the construction site due to bad road conditions, which sometimes made deliveries impossible.

A brand new and modern building makes space for 500 pupils!

The brand-new building with its 5 classrooms, courtyard and staffroom is now ready to receive more than 100 pupils and, in September, a new generation of students will start school for the first time in their lives.

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Thanks to support from Mike Müller, the Escuela para el Futuro Association and the Child & Family Foundation, children and families who did not even dare to dream of a better future get their chance to build a better life upon a proper education.