Ngobe-Bugle Schools
Ngobe-Bugle Area, Chiriqui Province, Republic of Panama

Years of sacrifice have built a better world for our children.

Please enjoy a brief 6 minute video of the Molejon people taken by Matthew Salton during the 2006 Mona Foundation visit: view video.

For the Love of Children

The story of Molejon School is a story of sacrifice. The indigenous families of the Ngobe-Bugle tribes are so dedicated to providing basic academic and moral education for their children that men carried cement on their backs over five mountains and three rivers to build Molejon, located on the remote mountains of Panama. Mona Foundation has been supporting Molejon school and its 3 teachers for the past 6 years.

Molejon High School

The Government of Panama has now reorganized the elementary schools in this region to serve all the villages except the remotest. They have also changed the requirement for teacher training to two years of college. The seven tutorial schools are now consolidated into one in Molejon. It is the remotest area so it is still served in this way. The ministry took notice of the efforts to train the teachers and has upgraded the schools and the standards accordingly. The new consolidation effort goal is to grow the Molejon school year by year into a high school.

The Mona Foundation efforts have now trained the teachers of the original schools and certified them.The five teachers have finished all their courses and graduated. The SOLOY Technology Center has received a new computer lab which is online to the world by satellite and solar energy. And the programs there serve the whole area. This has all happened within a three year span of time.

Our next steps are to support the Molejon school as it develops into a high school, and to assist in the continued development of the SOLOY computer laboratory with continued training and internet connectivity. For the full story and ongoing developments of this amazing project, please see the SOLOY CTLC section of this website.

Mona Foundation Meets with
Ngobe Bugle Teachers

Three teachers, a couple of parents and one very determined young boy of 12 crossed five mountains in the rain for nine hours and negotiated over three swollen rivers to meet with the Mona Foundation representatives in August, 2007. The rain beat on the metal roof as we settled in to consult. At times we had to shout to be heard over the din of the pounding water and as the dark clouds moved in; it was difficult to discern faces clearly as the afternoon wore on.

The teachers spoke after formal greetings of welcome. They listed their needs in detail. Mona Foundation members listened intently. We thanked them for walking such a long distance to visit with us, and shared that some of their requests had already been approved and funded. We then asked that they submit their rest of their requests to the Institute sponsoring their school. We committed that once the Institute had consulted with them and considered their request that they provide us with an updated proposal for our Board's review. We mentioned that we have been with them in the past seven years, and continue to be committed to supporting their educational initiative in whatever way we could. Please see the Growth page for the full story.

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Needs for 2007

• $6,000 Nutritional supplement
• $11,085 Education and teacher
• $800 Scholarships, 2/$400

How You Can Help

Please contact us or send your tax-deductible contributions to:

Mona Foundation
218 Main Street, Suite 404
Kirkland, WA 98033
(425) 743-4550
Email: monafoundation@monafoundation.org
Online: Contribute Online with your Credit Card Here

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