A brief history of the Santa Rosa Fund

A brief history of the Santa Rosa Fund

Now based in Tavistock, the Santa Rosa Fund has been supporting educational initiatives and projects in the country of Nicaragua for over 30 years.

In 1988, Tavistock residents June and Martin Mowforth visited Nicaragua. At that time, Martin was a researcher in the Transport Studies Group at University College London, a research organisation that had excellent relations and links with all the Latin American countries apart from Nicaragua. So he arranged a meeting with Rigoberto Silva Corea, the external relations secretary in the Nicaraguan Ministry of Education. After the meeting, Rigoberto asked Martin about June and her work; when Rigoberto learned that June was a headteacher at a secondary school in Plymouth, he asked if her school would like to develop a twinning link with a school in Managua. No promises were made, but Rigoberto immediately drove June and Martin to what was then the Escuela Ernesto Ché Guevara in the Barrio Santa Rosa of the capital city Managua, where they met with the headteacher, Virginia Gómez Hernández and Modesto Flores, one of the teachers.

On their return to England, June organised pupils at her school to collect pens, pencils, rulers, exercise books and other items of educational stationery that were lacking in the school in Managua, at first one box every three months, eventually increasing to one box per month. The Managua school also lacked many other items, for instance there were 700 pupils in attendance at the school, 350 in the morning and 350 in the afternoon with a number of adults and children attending at night for literacy classes. However, there were only just over 100 chairs and no desks, so most of the pupils had to sit on the floor during classes, while the seven classrooms had various windows and bits of roof missing.

When June retired from teaching in 1994, the Santa Rosa Fund was established as a registered charity (number 1028058) in order to continue the link. For the purpose of decision-making, 14 Tavistock-based trustees were appointed, meeting every three months. A couple of years later, the twin school in Southway, was closed, but the charity was able to continue the link by means of individual donations from a growing number of supporters and through fundraising events. At the end of the 1990s, the decision was made to hire the services of a Nicaraguan to make the monthly purchases in Managua, rather than spend valuable funds on airmail. So, for the last fifteen years René Zamora, a Managua resident, has consulted with the teaching staff at the Santa Rosa School, purchased the necessary items and then delivered them.

In 2001 the government of Nicaragua decreed that within five years every school should have a library - but gave no extra resources for schools to achieve this. At the same time however, the Santa Rosa Fund received a donation of around $2,500 (USD). This sum was about half of the amount required to build a library at the school, so the charity applied to the British Embassy in Managua for funds to match the donation. The application was successful and the Ben Dalton library was built, named after the British doctor who died crossing a border in Africa, who was also the late husband of Diana Dalton, the donor of the first $2,500. Some years later, the government of Nicaragua issued another decree, in this case that all schools should offer pupils the opportunity to use computers, but once again no resources were forthcoming. Again the Santa Rosa Fund applied to the British Embassy, this time in Costa Rica, as the embassy in Managua had closed. The embassy could not provide the funds required for this initiative, but instead offered several of their own machines which had been replaced. So in 2006, through the help of the British Embassy in Costa Rica, the Santa Rosa Fund provided five computers and two printers to the Santa Rosa School. Today the Santa Rosa Fund sustains its commitment to the Santa Rosa School through an annual grant, covering the maintenance costs for the computing equipment, the monthly purchases of materials, as well as a yearly donation by Bill Dalton (Ben’s father) for the upkeep of the Ben Dalton Library, and a small annual sum to be used at the headteacher’s discretion.

At this juncture it is important to point out that over its 30 years of existence, the Santa Rosa Fund has supported much more than just the one school in Nicaragua. Over the last two decades the greater bulk of the monies disbursed to educational initiatives and projects in Nicaragua has been through the good offices of the Berriz Sisters based in the town of El Viejo, and more lately the Friends of Holland Foundation which took over the work of the Berriz Sisters after the latter left the country. These initiatives have included support for youth centres, libraries, schools, and in particular for the provision of education to the children of a very small and remote community called Los Pozitos. The link with Los Pozitos was initiated by Jacky Rushall, a Plymouth teacher, when she visited the families in the village in 2004. Jacky is now one of the Santa Rosa Fund trustees. The Fund also provides annual support to the Quincho Barrilete Association which initially provided care and protection for street children in Managua, but whose focus is now on care and protection of abused children. Additionally, we have supported an amazingly active library called Little Cob in the city of Matagalpa, a series of educational workshops run by a Nicaraguan Women’s Organisation and a similar series run by a medical clinic that treats the families of plantation workers. Following various natural disasters that have struck Nicaragua, the Fund has also provided relief funds for recovery efforts.

Martin Mowforth