Friends Boys School burglarized; 15 laptops stolen

“Bridging the Gap between poverty and possibilities” is the motto of the Friends Boys School on Allenby Street in Belize City. The school is very small in comparison to most primary education institutions and is designed to pull primary school dropouts back into the education system. But over the weekend it was burglarized. Candi Young, a teacher at the school, says fifteen laptops valued at over thirty-seven thousand five hundred dollars, were taken from the second floor.

Candi Young, Teacher, Friends Boys School
“The school started in 1993 with Miss Sadie Vernon and two other teachers, catering to males and young youths, dropping out from standard six and needed a second change to get into high school. About six Sunday morning, I got a call from—an officer came to my house, PC Zetina, informing me that I need to come to the school because there’s a situation at the school. So I came over and the doors were broken. It wasn’t ransacked but fifteen computers, laptops were missing.”

Jose Sanchez
“Who uses these laptops?”

Candi Young
“The students use them to do most of their work and internet access. Everything that they do in the school, math, science, they do this on their computers.”

Jose Sanchez
“What is the brand of the laptops?”

Candi Young
“It’s Fujitsu Lifebook computers, rarely used in Belize.”

Jose Sanchez
“So if anyone sees it?”

Candi Young
“If anyone sees it they will know it’s not really—everybody is used to Dell and Sony. These were given to us, partially donated. Five of them were donated and we bought the next ten.”

Jose Sanchez
“How many students do you have?”

Candi Young
“At this moment we only have eighteen. I’m just appealing to the public, that if anybody out there can assist by giving to us or donating computers to us or whatever help you can, we would really appreciate it.”

If you would like to assist the school with any donations, please call the school at 227-0449 or email them at friendsboysschool@btl.net.