LCS Director of Education
The Lake Chapala Society has been here many years and has established a solid base of services to its foreign members. A second reason for the Society to exist is to provide educational opportunities to the Mexican community.
Several years ago one of our members, Mr. Ed Wilkes, generously left his home to the Society. The house was retrofitted in 1999 and named the Wílkes Education Center, (WEC). In March of this year, the center at #18 Galeana in Ajijic was dedicated to help improve the education of the Mexican community. A small grant from Fideicomiso Para La Cultura Mexico/USA was given to the Society’s Biblioteca (library) for purchase of books. One of the grant provisions was to conduct a summer school program.
By the time this article is published, over 100 first through sixth graders from the local public schools will have completed four weeks of concentrated reading, writing and math taught by local Mexican teacher volunteers. These dedicated educators have given most of their summer to improve the basic skills of the children. The students have been exposed to beautiful new books (provided by the U. S. Mexico Fund for Culture), housed within the Wilkes Education Center Biblioteca. It is hoped that the seed of learning has been planted and will flourish in the years ahead.
Reading Clubs will be scheduled in September, when former summer school children, their parents and others will come to the WEC and begin to develop a love of reading and the proper care of books. Currently, the WEC has over 1100 books in Spanish and a growing number of children’s books in English, for both the Mexican children and sometimes bored grandchildren of foreigners who visit us from time to time.
At the WEC summer program commencement August 12 & 13, each child completing the reading/writing and/or math curriculum was given a T-shirt which showed they were students at the 1999 Summer Program conducted at the WEC, and a class photo signed by their teacher as a remembrance of this time of basic skills improvement.
Both foreigners and locals are invited to stop by the WEC and see our three fine classrooms, the planned computer instruction room, the libraries, reading room and covered patio. The WEC library is open and staffed week days from 9:00 a.m. to 2:00 and 4:00 to 7:00 p.m., and Saturday 9:00 to 1:00 p.m. Already Luisa Julian is teaching a How to Cook With What You Have class for Mexican moms in our newly renovated kitchen. We also have three or four English as a Foreign Language classes for all ages, and several other classes are planned in art and music. The libraries have many reference books and can use more donations in both English and Spanish. We also need donations of many bookends from our friends. Soon the WEC will have a personal library card for Mexicans at Lakeside to check out materials.
Only time will tell how much the farsighted gift of Ed Wilkes and the dedicated efforts of volunteer educators will pay off in improving young lives. We already are beginning to see good things happen through education. Our thanks to all who have contributed
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