The academic year for 2008 is now under way and the 750 educational institutions benefiting from the Program of Support to Rural Schools have already received donations of school materials, children’s books, games, health and music materials, which they habitually receive from the Bunge y Born Foundation in partnership with the Perez Companc Foundation. This year, they also received a special edition of the winning entries for the writing competition held in 2007 --“The Illustrated Book”-- a publication designed especially to teach people about nutrition, as well as a spelling bee.

As always, a new competition has been announced, and this year, all schools are invited to take part with their proposals for a school magazine or newspaper. The prize for the winning school will be a school trip to Buenos Aires.

A visit
School No. 889 ‘La Concepción’, which is located in the Tigre Islands, was visited on March 17 this year by authorities from the Bunge y Born and Perez Companc Foundations, who delivered the Program donation personally. The visit served to deepen an understanding of the current conditions of the school and its pupils and develop an appreciation of the efforts made by teachers in their daily tasks of education. The school lies on the banks of the Abra Vieja river and has over 250 pupils, all of which have to make their way in by boat. The school teaches first to ninth grade and serves breakfast and lunch in its dining room every day. The headmistress, Mónica Cerutti, told her pupils that the school joined the Program in 2005 and has been receiving this important donation ever since.