St. Joseph school ransacked by burglars
In today’s tight economic times, administrators at many Belizean schools must depend on the business community’s kindness, parental support, and active fundraising efforts to meet the educational needs of our youngest citizens. So when school property is stolen or damaged, teachers and their students are especially hard hit. Such was the case today at St. Joseph’s Primary in Belize City.
Glorycela Torres, Principal, St. Joseph’s School
“The minute you have anybody going to sell things to you, that means it’s a stolen good. And we are creating this problem; we are the ones creating this problem. If there is a market, of course they will continue stealing.”
Janelle Chanona, Reporting
This morning a frustrated Glorycela Torres was cleaning the mess left behind by the thieves who broke into her office between Sunday evening and early Monday morning. According to the St. Joseph’s Primary School Principal, the incident is the seventh such assault on the institution since January.
Glorycela Torres
“Thursday before school closed, we had break-in into the standard six. All the standard six they went in, they went through the ceiling. That was the Thursday before school close.”
“Good Friday, a Holy Day, they break into the staff room, they gawn with our lawnmower and many other things that were there they went with. It’s disgusting.”
This time around, the thieves took teaching tools.
Glorycela Torres
“Tapes and markers and medication for our own children. So I am appealing to the public, the only way this crime will end if we don’t have a market out there because the minute that the people break-in and they have things to sell and people are buying it, this will continue. The public in general have to make a conscious effort in eliminating this stealing that’s happening in our schools.”
In a response to the earlier thefts, Torres installed metal doors in the classrooms and reinforced locks but last night the perpetrators showed up with cutting equipment and easily gained access to the building. Now the principal says the school must take more desperate measures.
Glorycela Torres
“We do have security that they are giving to the schools during the day, which is very good, and I can say it has been a great help for us as principals but I am begging that it would be good if night security is placed in our public schools because we are trying our best and you come to this, you feel really depressed.”
“St. Joseph is one of the schools that charge one of the lowest fees in the city. We are asking our parents especially that we have to raise the fees somehow so that we can have a night security until the Government can do something about because how you feel when you come in in the morning and find the place like this, this is sad.”
St. Joseph’s has an enrolment of a thousand students.
Reporting for News Five, I am Janelle Chanona
Torres is appealing to the public for the return of the school’s lawnmower, described as a green four point five Briggs and Stratton machine. No questions will be asked.
