A Fresh Start for the Daycare and Reading Corner

The Reading Corner and the daycare in Santiago are going through a lot of changes at the moment. Last week, a team of workers including 3 local Nicaraguan guys, the daycare and Reading Corner workers, and a host of Mariposa volunteers, worked the whole week to give the building a new look! Venice and many of the local workers had been wanting to fix up the bulding for a while, and it all culminated this past week in this massive renovation project. 
    

They started off by cleaning everything, then set to work on the more difficult parts: re-plastered the walls, added locks to doors, repaired all windows and doors, and constructed a new window, so altogether, lots of changes! The workers worked from 7 am to 4 pm each day, with the daycare ladies 
cooking lunch for everyone who came to help. The ladies of the daycare as well as the Mariposa volunteers were not paid for any of their contributions and instead volunteered their time to help out the community.
  


A wall was placed in the middle of the building, so it is now divided in 2 seperate classrooms: one for the Reading Corner and one for the daycare. Before that, they shared the same classroom, which caused miscommunication between the teachers. This problem is solved now luckily! The Reading Corner is going to be open in the afternoons, and the school is going to be open only in the mornings.
Next week we are going to continue work on the renovation by painting murals. We found 2 guys that are going to paint beautiful murals on the walls, inside and outside. Janeth from the Reading Corner came up with the idea to do at least 1 mural with the kids. This will make it all the more personal and we are really excited about that! After that, we want to start with the interior to make sure the teachers and the classrooms have all the materials they need to function as a Reading Corner, and now as a pre-school.
The daycare has now turned into a pre-school. The 3 women that work here, Karin, Orla, and Dona Candida, went to the Ministry of Education and were told that the daycare is a pre-school from now on. The ladies are going to attend a course, sponsored by the ministry, that will teach them how to make lesson plans and coordinate the school for each week. This means a lot, because the Ministry of Education is willing to invest and do more for the children now that they’re are attending a pre-school! The school is going to open as a pre-school for 2, 3, and 4 year olds on February 13th. It will be open from 8 am to 12 pm each weekday.

This is the news so far about the Reading Corner and the daycare! Keep an eye on our blog and follow us in this project! 

Want to contribute and help this project by making a donation? Both projects need a few things to function even better: paint for the murals, a couch for the Reading Corner, books (Spanish and/or English) for both projects, bookshelves, pens, notebooks, materials for arts and crafts. For more info or for donations you can get in contact with Venice, one of the interns: veniceatmopawiro@live.nl
Thanks! 🙂