Creating Sustainable Solutions To End Generational Poverty
The objective of Escuela del Rio de La Plata is to accomplish the challenge of including children and adolescents meaningfully into society through board sport, recycling, caring of the beach and conscious use of the regional natural produce.
Escuela del Rio de La Plata was started in 2010 by a group of amateur and professional paddlers trained in the use and reparation of SUP boards and also as carers of the environment. We know our coast and the tides, the weather and the security measures in the river. We are all teachers concerned with protecting and preserving the natural environment. Our aim is to help the economic development of the local people with the creation of a chain of values that comes from water sports. Starting with the theoretical and practical training on materials as well as the basic handicrafts needed for the fixing and recycling of the equipment in order to to practice the sports. The neighbors gave us permission to run the school in the once Community Library and lunch room and the project is supported by the work of its members: Marcelo Zuleta, Martín Casado, Azucena Jerez and the neighbor’s help.
We have received donations from local clubs, some contributions from companies, individuals and some people that documented our activities. Most of the children and teenagers that take part in the activities are from families with low income. It is a coastal area where houses are built as precarious huts alongside the water and most of it is flooded from time to time. Only the waterfront avenue and the principal roads are paved and the majority of the people have informal and temporary jobs. In summer our local kids come to the school three times a week but in winter we only meet at weekends. In 2015 one of our students won two championships of the Official Circuit, in Bariloche and Mar del Plata, with the help of individuals, a hotel company and the Hostels Association of Bariloche.This same year the Argentinian Surf Association officially recognised our school as trainers of young athletes.
In 2021 Escuela Del Rio de la Plata linked up with a group of teachers who began literacy tasks for children who suffer from precarious schooling. In this way we try to guarantee a better future for our athletes. With the participation of the neighbors, a local artist, we began the realization of a mural on the wall of our coast, which reflects the communion between sports, the environment and the local community.
There was a great windsurf development in our area in the 80s but due to the arrival of other sports and the changes in the economy of the country hundreds of boards were abandoned in the local clubs.Our idea was to reuse these old boards with three purposes:
