Rotary International District 5280 Donates to Unity Presbyterian Primary School

Rotary International District 5280 is in Belize on a humanitarian visit. The group, along with members of Rotary Belize, identified several projects to assist communities across the country. One of those projects is a new fence for Unity Presbyterian Primary School in  Belize City. Hipolito Novelo reports. 

Hipolito Novelo, Love News: It’s more than once that we’ve reported on burglaries at Unity Presbyterian Primary School in Belize City. Time after time thieves break into the classrooms, stealing and vandalizing school property. And the school is easy prey for idle minds because it does not have a proper fence and the school lack resources to build one. But, that’s about the change thanks to a donation from Rotary Belize City and Rotary District. Twenty thousand dollars was earmarked to fund the building of a much needed fence. 

Dalila Makhwani, Principal Unity Presbyterian Primary School: “We are very happy to receive this donation because this is means a lot to us. First of all we would be able to have a safer environment meaning that we would be able to lock our gates, that we would have truancy lessened in our school and we’d be able to know who comes in and who comes out of our school. Also when it comes to our financial burden as we know children would come because we don’t have a fence or people would come to the school environment and they would damage certain things or vandalize the school so this will eliminate that. Also we will be able to integrate our science outside in the compound because now we can have a garden. Before we always wanted to have a garden outside and beautify outside but it wasn’t possible because we didn’t have a fence surrounding the school so this will really enhance not only the beautification but also the learning and keep the environment safer.”

Hipolito Novelo, Love News: District 5280 is in Belize For several life-changing service projects. District Governor Olivia Patterson-Ryan says this time around the focus is on children  

Olivia Patterson-Ryan, District Governor, Rotary International 5280: “We’re her to just help out wherever we can and the growth and health  and development mainly of the children , we’ve been focusing on the children since we’ve been here. We’ve done fifteen different projects in schools, we’ve done solar panels, we’ve done play grounds, we’ve upgraded installed bathrooms in the schools, provided books in the schools I can’t even remember everything that we’ve done.”

Hipolito Novelo, Love News: Logistics Coordinator for this project and Rotarian Francis Woods told Love News this particular project is one out of fifteen. 

Francis Woods, Member, Rotary Belize City: “We are the culmination of a humanitarian trip from district 5280 in Northern California and we just wrapped up with the last project that we did which was a $20,000 donation to Unity Presbyterian for their fence project that they’re doing. But the entire project is fifteen projects that we did and two of them were global grants so they’re large number but the sum of everything is $430,000 Belize that this group brought to the country in over fifteen projects to be exact.”

Hipolito Novelo, Love News:  Reporting for Love News, I am Hipolito Novelo.