A New School Building for Bishop Martin High School

Bishop Martin High School was also a recipient of a financial grant from the Japan Embassy through the Grassroots and Human Security Programme. In 2017, the Japanese Embassy and the school signed a contract valued more than two hundred thousand dollars. The monies were used for the construction of a news concrete school building. An inaugural ceremony was held this afternoon. News Five’s Hipolito Novelo reports.

Hipolito Novelo, Reporting

For the past sixteen years, Orange Walk’s Bishop Martin High School has been steadily growing. The school began with sixty students and is one of the youngest schools in the country. Today three hundred and eighty-five students are enrolled. The school’s student enrollment, however, is slowly outgrowing its capacity.

Luis Pook

Luis Pook, Principal, Bishop Martin High School

“We have mostly students from the neighboring community of Trial Farm and we have students from within town but we also have students from the villages. As a matter of fact our enrollment is usually around fifty-fifty urban, and rural if you count Trial Farm as a village.”

Through a grant donation by the Embassy of Japan’s Grass-Roots Human Security Project, construction of a new concrete school building began in May 2018. The building came at a cost of about two-hundred and sixty thousand dollars. Of that portion, the Japanese Embassy donated more than two-hundred and seven thousand dollars. The new building contains a classroom, a library, and a music room.

Luis Pook

“The school has a lack of space. We have classrooms that have been added on, they are made of lumber. This classroom building is made of concrete and it is difficult for the schools to come up with monies to get something concrete built. So it was a blessing that we manage to get the Japanese grassroots project to sponsor this building in most part.”

Hipolito Novelo

“Does it have the capabilities or characteristics of a hurricane shelter?”

Luis Pook

“I believe it does. It’s strong enough. The doors and windows are made of metal and so on.”

For Hiroyuki Kubota, Chargé d’affaires at the Japanese Embassy, it is within the project’s vision to assist educational institutions such as Bishop Martin High School.

Hiroyuki Kubota

Hiroyuki Kubota, Chargé d’affaires, Japan Embassy in Belize

“The quality of education at Bishop Martin High School being provided has improved so that is one of our focuses of the grassroots grant program-the quality of education for the community.”

The new building is named “Briceño Hall’. Hipolito Novelo, News Five.