Notes from the field: SchoolBOX's global educational programs

SchoolBOX: With education, anything is possible

By Jen Pendergast

Like many young children in Nicaragua, Robinson didn’t like going to school . He did not want to learn in a dirty and structurally unsound classroom, and often found it difficult to follow what the teacher was saying . When a group of international volunteers with the Canadian charity SchoolBOX first met Robinson in 2010, he was a shy and withdrawn 11-year-old who had dropped out of school three years before, without having graduated from kindergarten .

The SchoolBOX team could tell Robinson had a desire to learn and the potential for an incredible future, so the volunteers kept on trying to engage him . Ronald Chavarría began mentoring him and with the encouragement of teams of local and international staff, Robinson re-enrolled in classes and began to work his way through elementary and high school .

A full 10 years on, Robinson is a young man with a bright future . He is in his fourth year of high school and plans on graduating next year . He dreams of studying digital marketing or medicine . They’re big dreams, considering he was out of school a few short years ago . He also works hard to help others, including through his job at his local soup kitchen and volunteering with SchoolBOX .

Robinson is just one of the thousands of children in Nicaragua and Northern Canada that SchoolBOX enables to thrive through education . “The Little Charity That Could,” SchoolBOX was born in 2006 from a chance encounter when founder Tom Affleck was travelling in Nicaragua and gave a gift of a notebook and pencil to two young girls he met . The father of one of the girls remarked that now she could attend school and Affleck returned home to Almonte, Ont ., with a new dream of making education possible in Nicaragua .

He worked with Chavarría, and with fundraisers here in Canada, to begin distributing school supply packages to rural communities throughout Nicaragua . In a country where most families live on less than $2 a day and barely half the children graduate Grade 6, it quickly became clear that there was a huge need and that many more children could benefit from this small, but critical, helping hand .

Since then, SchoolBOX has provided more than 160,000 school supply packages to thousands of children . Packages

Students at SchoolBOX partner schools receive school supplies every year. These packages are important — they can mean the difference between going to school and dropping out.

are delivered through schools, so that all children in the class benefit equally . Each teacher also gets a special kit .

The charity’s ambition doesn’t stop at distributing school supplies . SchoolBOX builds classrooms and libraries for the schools it serves, working with the ministry of education and other local partners to ensure the schools it builds will keep receiving support and funding in the future . Classes that were previously housed in open air ranchos, borrowed houses and dilapidated buildings have been transformed when SchoolBOX construction crews, with assistance from the neighbouring community and international volunteers, create a safe, sanitary classroom that communities can use for generations . Since its inception, SchoolBOX has built 118 classrooms all over Nicaragua .

Completing elementary and even secondary education vastly improves students’ prospects for earning, employment and even basic health and well-being . For girls and young women, each extra year’s education increases income by as much as 20 per cent and improves their health and that of their children and family . For boys . the statistics may not be quite as powerful, but the benefits are nevertheless hugely significant for the young man he becomes, and his family and community, too . Education has undoubted benefits .

SchoolBOX is committed to continuing to help children such as Robinson, and with bright and welcoming schools and the supplies to enable them to learn and contribute throughout their school years, thousands more children will have the opportunity to turn their lives around . Each summer, Robinson travels 120 kilometres to Managua and stays with the SchoolBOX team to help package school supplies . He knows how much of a difference SchoolBOX made to his life . By volunteering and encouraging others to stay in school, he is helping to build dreams — and make them come true .

COVID-19 has put SchoolBOX’s 2020 projects on hold, but the charity is determined to come back strong when activities are able to start up again . Executive director Jonathan Tam is optimistic SchoolBOX will be back when the time is right .

“Our goal is to continue to empower students and teachers in our partner communities in Nicaragua when things are safe again and the economy is recovering . We look forward to continuing our mission of making education possible .”

Because, as Robinson says, “With education, anything is possible . ”

Jen Prendergast has been a volunteer writer with SchoolBOX for the past two years .