How we ended up building an
eco-school on an island in Panama…
10 years ago my husband David and I chose to leave our home in Paris, France in pursuit of a dream, a desire for another life elsewhere. We wanted to build a better life for our family, surrounded by nature, free of pollution & urban stress, surrounded with nature & animals.
We chose to settle in Panama, in Bocas del Toro, a place that ticked all the boxes of our ideal life. Many of you know - in 2014 we had a little boy, Tiago, who has since grown up on this magnificent island.
As Tiago grew, we realized there wasn’t an education system available on the island that met our expectations. Obviously, quality education from an early age is a priority for our son. We asked ourselves many times - “should we leave this little island to find a place with better school infrastructure & education that would ensure our child had the best foundation & start in life?”
We were in the middle of asking ourselves this very question, when the pandemic arrived.
Like parents around the world, our whole plan changed. We turned our focus to ensuring Tiago was able to continue with his education.
Around that time, we were contacted by a teacher who wanted to settle nearby, and along with other local parents struggling with the same problem, we decided to embark on the crazy adventure of creating a French-speaking, an international green school in Bocas Del Toro, Panama.
Supported by the French Embassy and the distance learning courses of the French National Education, we quickly set up a curriculum for a small group of children, and we were able to maintain this small school throughout the toughest times in the pandemic.
Our greatest desire was to offer a quality education, taught by teachers who have graduated from international universities, so that we could stay in paradise, without risking the quality of our son's education & future.
We chose to create our school in the legal form of a Panamanian NGO, which corresponds more to our philosophy, the education of our children must be a commitment to quality and not a business.
As the time has passed, we put all of our savings towards creating a permanent school on the island, and have dedicated our lives, time and effort (unpaid) in order to support this important project. Everything from finding a venue, enrolling students, a budget to pay for teachers (the team has grown to offer classes in English and Spanish) and school rental and living expenses, It’s been quite the adventure!
Our vision has evolved with time - we are creating a quality academic curriculum, in THREE languages, that includes a nature-based eco-school where the nature that surrounds us also serves as a teaching tool.
The pandemic has made us even more aware of the importance of life, respecting the planet and the need to share all of this with future generations, not just with academic skills, but human tools. We do this by teaching recycling, permaculture, respect, empathy, humanity, generosity and community life...
We have created a participatory educational center where parents are active in the education of their children, where mutual help and community spirit is a priority - shifting mindsets about young children's education away from “daycare mentality” into genuine investment in the future & education of children raised on this island.
This vision has continued to grow, but we need the right people to evolve. We’ve made a lot of sacrifices to make it this far, but it’s time to enlist the support of others besides ourselves to continue the evolution and growth of this precious school.
Today our team has grown, we have internationally qualified teachers, with extraordinary specialties, and we are proud to have chosen this project. Putting aside the "I", to think collectively and humanly, brings us a lot of personal satisfaction, even if it is not obvious every day.
We learn daily from our experiences, our encounters and our mistakes. We are confident that the future will bring us encounters with people whose values correspond to ours in the long term. We have met so many beautiful people respecting their commitments that we are reassured about the future of the project and happy to have been able to offer a quality education to our son and his friends.
We have chosen to look at the bigger picture, and so to invest our savings in the purchase of magnificent land and in the construction of a new school capable of receiving more students in the best environment. We have been really happy and proud to be able to open it in September 2022.
Together are preparing some big plans over the year, and we would love to share more with you. Please reach out - I’d love to share the next steps of our vision with you.
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