All Saints School is latest burglary victim

There was a time when breaking into a school in Belize was about as rare as a major hurricane. Those days, however, have gone the way of five cent panades and Charger Beer. The latest institution to suffer the indignity of burglary is one of the largest Anglican schools in the country.

Therese Roches, Principal, All Saints Primary School
“The children were really affected because they spoke about it. They were very, very sad the morning when they came in and saw their very organised classroom all in a total disarray, so they were very, very upset.”

Jacqueline Godwin, Reporting
On Monday when the staff and students arrived at All Saints Primary School they discovered that five of their classrooms were burglarised. The children’s water bottles, books, and DVD player had been stolen. The thieves also made off with the school bell and curtains. The break-in, which occurred sometime between Friday evening and Monday morning, comes on the heels of another burglary that occurred at the school just last week, in which the thieves stole a water cooler valued at one thousand dollars.

Therese Roches
“Now the children are deprived of their water because we don’t have the water coolers anymore. So actually it is the children who suffer when these things happen in school.”

The students must now bring their own water supply to school. Because the water cooler that was stolen was on contract from Bowen and Bowen, the school is now faced with the additional expense of having to pay for the loss.

Therese Roches
“Well, the largest one is the one thousand dollars that more than likely we will have to fundraise to pay Bowen and Bowen for that water cooler. Luckily, what we did was that we cleared the classrooms of all water coolers that we had when they first one was stolen, so we want to believe that they came back for the others but they had already been delivered to Bowen and Bowen.”

During both incidents, the burglars also damaged the building to access the classrooms.

Therese Roches
“Last week they got into one of our infant one classes and we believe it was through a window. The window was not actually pried, but we believe that somebody came in and was looking around and trying to sort out how they could get into the room, because the window was actually open from inside. So we know that it is somebody around the school who apparently did that.”

“For quite a while we felt that our school was safe enough because we have burglar bars, we have grilled gates and all of these things. But it seem as though the people who come in now, they have their ways and means of ripping these things apart and doing what they want to do.”

The school has since reinforced the gates and burglars bars in the hope that the added security will keep the thieves at bay. In the meantime, the police are asking anyone with information on the burglaries to contact them.

If you would like to assist the staff and students of All Saints Primary School, please contact principal Therese Roches at telephone number 203-0067. In related news, as a result of the recent series of break-ins at Salvation Army Primary School, we are happy to report that thanks to a kind donation from Contemporary Electronic System Limited, an alarm system has been installed at the institution.