Date: May 31, 2019
On May 31st 2019, Eveline Tegelaar, Robin Fitzgibbon and Paul van Schijndel of Rhumveld Winter & Konijn were invited to attend the official opening of Hylea’s new facility in the village of Fortaleza – Pando, Bolivia. This is the second time that we were able to visit this amazing location, in the heart of the Bolivian rainforest, where our supplier recently inaugurated a state-of-the-art facility. The school we are supporting is also a part of this project, that provides many jobs for the people in the region. We were very pleased to see the progress of the project – with the school very near to completion.
The school is currently only being used for tutoring young women in the afternoons. It was suggested not to move the pupils in the middle of the academic year, so classes in the new school will start in February 2020. They are 80 students in Fortaleza, all of them received their new school books at the beginning of this year.
Johanna – board member of the Hecker Foundation – explains: “We know that neighboring communities (new factory workers) have expressed their interest in sending their children to the new school (or even to the current “old” school). However, we are unable to allow this at the present moment, since the school operates under strict public structures. We have started the process to become a partial private school and aim for a complete private administration shortly. We need to figure out how to manage this for it to be sustainable in the long-run (teacher salaries, administration costs, etc., need to be calculated; partnerships need to be formed).”
