Project

Unión Alto Sanibeni Primary and Nursery School

Unión Alto Sanibeni is a rural community of the Ashaninka people, located about an hour and a half by car from Pangoa’s capital, San Martín de Pangoa. The main economic activity in Pangoa is agriculture, hence the community of Union Alto Sanibeni obtain their income from coffee production, and other crops such as bananas and yucca.

Our partners in Peru had been working with this community since 2015. They identified the need for improved school facilities as the wooden classrooms originally built in 1998 were collapsing, metal rooves were leaking and the furniture was unstable.

With much support from the community, a new primary school was constructed including six new fully furnished classrooms, a multi-function room/canteen, teacher’s room, storage room, kitchen, sanitation, water, electricity, playground and a perimeter fence.

Part-way through the construction of the primary school, the team realised that further investment was needed, as the nursery school children were also lacking decent facilities. This resulted in the Costa Foundation funding an additional two fully furnished classrooms, a multi-use room, library, kitchen, storage room, sanitation, and playground.

The school opened its doors to 155 children in September 2019 and is much loved by the children, teachers and parents in this remote rural community.