U.S. military, B.D.F. join for humanitarian projects
They may be bogged down in a debilitating war in Iraq and an increasingly dangerous situation in Afghanistan but that has not stopped the United States military from carrying out its humanitarian commitments in other parts of the world … like Belize.
Jacqueline Godwin, Reporting
In three months, these Belize Defence Force Soldiers and United States military service men and women will construct four, two-classroom school buildings in the villages of Crooked Tree, Hattieville, Carmelita, and Trail Farm. For over ten years the Belizean and U.S. forces have been working shoulder to shoulder in a humanitarian exercise dubbed New Horizon. Four years ago the last project was completed in Southern Belize. Today the teachers and students in the north witnessed the groundbreaking ceremony at Trial Farm Government School.
Lloyd Gillett, Brigadier General, B.D.F.
“This is a win, win, win situation because the U.S military gets to satisfy their annual training requirement, the Belize Defence Force combat engineers get some on the job training, and the children get more classroom space where they can learn, where they can develop into the future workers of Belize.”
School principals Aviceli Nah and Perla Hoy say the additional classrooms are long overdue. Presently, the children and teachers are cramped in school buildings that make it uncomfortable to teach and learn.
Aviceli Nah, Principal, Trial Farm Government School
“We have presently approximately over eight hundred students. It is a big school and most of the classrooms are well packed. Presently, we have the computer lab room, we have a classroom there so it will really helped us a lot.”
Perla Hoy, Principal, Carmelita Government Primary School
“Presently we have three classrooms which are split down the middle to accommodate six classes. So you know presently this is very fortunate for us, our children will be having more space which, means that for September we will have, we know that we will have a bigger enrolment and we can accommodate more children into our school.”
The total construction is estimated to cost three hundred and sixty thousand U.S. dollars, all paid for by Uncle Sam. It is an exercise the Belize Government welcomes as it seeks to increase the access to education.
Servulo Baeza, Min. of State, Ministry of Nat. Resources
“In his budget presentation in the National Assembly on the second of March, The Right Honourable Prime Minister stated that in this new fiscal year, education accounts for twenty-five percent or a hundred and forty-three million of the recurrent budget, with an increase of seventeen point three million over last year’s expenditure, we are indeed a nation unquestionably committed to education.”
For the U.S., it is an occasion to train their military personnel whose usual mission in wartime is to build facilities like runways, bases, and bridges to support contingency operations overseas.
Col Douglas Mouton, Head, New Horizon 2007
“So they are actually preparing and training for their wartime mission by exercising this construction activity here so the benefit to the United States service members is that they are training for a real mission. And obviously it exercises more than just the activity of construction, but the activity of packing your equipment up and moving it down, bringing down the aviation helicopter support and then the fire crash rescue support, the communication packages that have to come down, the medical support. So all those systems that have to exercise and deployment overseas are now practised in this effort. So we get to expand and have a very comprehensive training exercise.”
Additionally, medical personnel from the U.S. Army and Air Force will conduct six mobile medical clinics throughout the Orange Walk and Belize districts.
