In 2002 Jill Bignell took a 6 month sabbatical teaching in Lima. On her return to England she raised money to educate 10 children each year, but realising this was not enough she started Educate Peru.

In 2006 she moved permanently to Peru with the vision of building a new school. She chose Pachacutec,‘the poorest, most desolate place I have ever been’ and by March 2008 a concrete building of four classrooms with flush toilets was completed where Jill and all her staff work without pay. Jill sees this as a lifelong mission to empower the poor of this area through a quality, sustainable education system.

“6 years ago, I gave up my job as Head of Department for Modern Languages to go on 6 months’ sabbatical leave to Peru. I wanted a change from teaching – although I love it! – but ended up teaching (gratis) in San Juan de Lurigancho, a poor suburb of Lima, at a school started by the Rt Revd William Godfrey, the Anglican Bishop of Peru. When I returned to England, I decided to raise money to send 10 children to school there and indeed we did that for 5 years, up till last Christmas.

Gradually, the idea occurred to me that with a bit more effort, we could start to raise money to actually build our own school, which is when Educateperu
was “born”. It became obvious that the school wasn’t going to get built with me in England, so I gave up my job 2 years ago, rented out my house and came out here again. I live on the rent money and do all my work here gratis.

Last year, I was still working in the school for Bishop Godfrey and pushing the government to help me start a school by donating a piece of land.
I happened to visit Pachacutec with the Bishop.
It really was and is the poorest, most desolate place I have ever been. It is pure dust and sand; no water (it never rains the Lima side of the mountains) but with a soaking sea mist that renders the cardboard and plastic houses a soggy mush. This year has been terrible for them with 100% humidity but cold. It’s like permanent rain, awful when the floors are sand. There’s no furniture for the poorest of the poor and the children sit on the floors. Everyone coughs all the time. So that's where I decided the school should be built, where the most necessity is......which has always been my idea.

Many people have raised money including St Mary’s University College Twickenham, London (over £1,000 from their Carol Singing, half of their Lenten appeal in 2007/08; Corinne Abrahams (Lecturer) ran the 2006/08
London Marathon and raised over £1,000; friends and family of Prof. Dick Fisher cycled from London to Brighton and raised over £2,000; The Village of Saxlingham Nethergate, Norfolk organised an annual “May Mingle” (safari supper) for the last 4 years, a huge, old-fashioned Craft Fair; mini-massage days; Quiz nights; Evening Jamborees; Gisleham Middle School, Suffolk (the pupils there have raised almost £1,000 in the last 2 years via their Easter Charity Fair.)
With £15,000 raised, the school of Saxlingham St Mary’s was built in March 2008 and 120 children aged 4 – 8 go there. For many of them it is their first time in a school and full time education. There are no other concrete - structured schools there, least of all anything provided by the government. In the end, with a disappointing lack of support from the government, (they wanted me to pay THEIR expenses when I put up the school! So no I didn’t) I found administrative help from another charity called Coprodeli.
The Spanish padre who founded Coprodeli has been here in Peru for 20 years. He had a government piece of land in Pachacutec and all the licences ready to build, but no money to build. So, he and I work in partnership, very harmoniously too!
He is the only one who has done any proper, effective work via schemes to fight poverty there and indeed, when I showed him my project plan – technical classrooms, bakery, communal dining room, classrooms, literacy classes for the parents and neighbours of the school etc. he said “Have you seen my other school then?” “No, this is my project plan” I said. When I went to see the complex he had just finished after 8years, it was spectacular. I have seen nothing to rival it before or since. It is an amazing mix of appropriate help and vision... with everything in it that my project plan describes!

So, with the padre’s advice and help, St Mary’s was built and his charity administer it. However, I am pledged to raise the money every year to build on at least 2 more classrooms, to accommodate the progressing class of oldest children, whilst at the same time, bringing in some more of the waiting list that we have. The classrooms are built in pairs, because of the special type of solid roof, that isn’t easy to cut or overlap etc.

The building logistics are horrendous and therefore costly: The starter school that exists of 4 large, airy classrooms was put in a “hollow” of some 25 x 30 metres size. This hollow represents a 3m depth of sand that was dug out to save the tremendous costs of using even more concrete than we already had to, at a time when cement and water had doubled in price due to the earthquake of last year. The overall size of the site is approx 4.000m2 - so plenty of room to expand!  Despite this, there is still a 3m depth of sand underneath the school, so the footings are deep and include a placa, a special type of sand-retaining wall. Hence the cost of £10,000 necessary for each pair of classrooms. We do though have flush toilets, which no other building there has, apart from the padre’s school.
My partner, who is a Peruvian architect, is now designing a special type of “malla”, a net placed on the roof, which will lead to an underground silo, to save water. We shall then use that for watering plants and trees and thus give the children a quality of life that is unimaginable for them at the moment. We have put little plants in the school “patio” etc and one of the mothers, who comes from a farming family in the mountains, is teaching the children how to grow beans and vegetables.......but the water is always difficult. It is so expensive.

I have a volunteer English teacher coming out here next month to teach English, gratis again, as we all work for the same pay... “nothing”!!.  The Peruvian teachers are paid by the government, as part of the legal requirement of them donating the land.

My idea is and has always been, to give something long term of quality, that is sustainable and ultimately for Peruvians to “nurture”. They need our help and I will be doing so for the rest of my life, but there are clever, capable, willing people here, who just lack the resources and training to do such a huge task on their own. With our help and guidance, they will be able to and even more importantly, show others here how to do it too.”

Why not visit the Educate Peru website