New School Building for Our Lady of Guadalupe RC

An eight classroom building at Our Lady of Guadalupe Roman Catholic High School was officially inaugurated on Saturday afternoon, 19 September at the high school premises in Belmopan.

The new building will benefit approximately 300 students and more than 20 staff members. The building provides 8,230 sq ft of space and the classrooms were completed of reinforced concrete with masonry block walls and a concrete roof.  It is

equipped with bathroom facilities for students and teachers, a vice-principal’s office, a bursar’s office and a waiting area. 

The project was implemented by the Social Investment Fund, under the auspices of the Ministry of Economic Development. It was financed jointly by the Government of Belize through the Commonwealth Debt Initiative and the Episcopal Conference of Catholic Bishops of Italy through His Excellency Archbishop Luigi Pezzuto, Papal Nuncio to Belize and El Salvador. The total cost of the project is estimated at $650,000.00. Of this amount, the Government provided $350,000.00. 

Our Lady of Guadalupe Roman Catholic High School was established  in September 2003 after Roman Catholics of the City of Belmopan and its surrounding communities solicited the establishment of a secondary school from their Parish Priest and the Most Reverend Bishop Osmond Peter Martin, Bishop of Belize and Belmopan. Its first campus was located at the compound of Our Lady of Guadalupe Co-Cathedral on the Ring Road in Belmopan City where it occupied the Parish Hall as its first classrooms. It subsequently re-located to its permanent campus on the George Price Boulevard in August 2007. 

The Guest Speaker at the official inauguration of the high school was His Excellency Archbishop Luigi Pezzuto, Apostolic Nuncio to Belize and El Salvador. Other main speakers included the Hon. Patrick Faber, Minister of Education, Hon. John Saldivar, Minister of the Public Service, Governance Improvement and Elections and Boundaries and Area Representative for Belmopan  along with officials of  Our Lady of Guadalupe Roman Catholic High School. 

The Social Investment Fund is the Government of Belize’s main implementing agency of social projects aimed at addressing the basic needs of all Belizeans in an honest and transparent manner utilizing a community-based approach. Established as a statutory body in l996, SIF has implemented 455 projects valued at $59.6 M in the areas of Water & Sanitation, Health, Economic Infrastructure, Education, Social Services, Organizational Strengthening and Micro-credit.