Panama Education

"WHAT WOULD OUR WORLD BE LIKE IF EVERY CHILD WAS EDUCATED IN THE JUDEO/CHRISTIAN MORALS, WITH ACADEMICS AND A VOCATION" ?
                      Pat Walsh - Rotarian and Panama Education Volunteer
 
 
International President Bill Boyd said “Literacy is a prerequisite for democracy, stability and prosperity in a nation”. It is an economic fact, that helping our international trading partners like Panama to be educated, will also help them be better able to trade with us.

The Amarillo Rotary Club is going to present an application for a matching grant from the Rotary Foundation in July 2007. This will facilitate a complete education for children who would not other wise receive one. Your support is needed to make this a success.

Click here to read the latest update on the Panama Education Project.  Click here to see latest pictures.

   
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You have an opportunity to help an on going project to continue providing this education to at least 687 indigenous children on a mountain top called Llano Nopo in northern Panama. These Indians live in abject poverty in sheds on the uncovered ground. They have very high rates of disease. Their diet and lack of medical care results in an average mortality of age 40! Their lifestyle is much like it was when the Spanish Conquistadors pushed them up out of the rain forest hundreds of years ago. Because of this, they are not welcome to work at even menial labor jobs in the cities. There are experts who predict all 134,000 of these indigenous who live in the Comarca, (reservation,) will disappear in a century unless their lifestyle changes! The following information will explain.

These Indian children are just like any other children. They grow to be the kind of adults who reflect the training they receive. Right now many families go down the mountain to pick coffee beans during the four months of dry season. The money men earn is wasted in drunkenness and fighting over their women. Education will change this environment.

The Panamanian Government provides a building and books for the teachers through grade six. There are no books or food for the children. The teacher must copy the study material on the blackboard for the class. The children usually only eat the evening meal at home each day. After the sixth grade the Catholic Diocese in David, Panama provides thetwo priests and five nuns as teachers for the seventh through the ninth grades. The tenth
through twelfth grades are planned by 2009. Funding is not available from the Diocese.

For the last three years, George Pat Walsh and his wife Betty have been providing school supplies and food and have funded a kitchen and dining room to prepare and serve the food for all 687 children. They also are providing funding for the Principal of the high school, Father Francisco, to finish the first of three planned boarding houses to
accommodate sixty students each. This will allow the children who live as far as a three hour walk, usually in the rain, to stay at school for five days a week. Father has even successfully trained a few Indians, who have no skills, nor any desire to learn any, how to make cement blocks and even lay them to build the buildings. This wonderful man of God makes a few dollars go very far.

Can You Help?
All funds are deposited in the Catholic Charity Foundation. Every dollar goes to educate the children. The church pays for the priests and nuns expenses. Walsh pays all other expenses. Every penny is accounted for by a CPA. This is a 501 (c)(3) Organization and records are available.

Write: Walsh at PO Box 1912, Amarillo, TX 79105 or Email: gp.walsh@yahoo.com .