New Non-Profit Aims to Support Single Parents Across Belize

A new non-profit which plans to make life a whole lot easier for single mothers and fathers to care for their children.

Are you a single mother or father struggling to support your child in school with reading? Single Parents Alliance might just be the answer for you. With more on this story, here’s Ann-Marie Williams.

Anne Marie Williams: “A study of eight primary schools staggered on Belize’s north and south side in 2023 showed that students in Standard Three had low or no reading ability at their grade level. The baseline data didn’t just lie there and die there though. In fact, it was part of the impetus for the establishment of a new nonprofit that founder Marie Munoz called Single Parents Alliance or SPA.”

Marie Munoz, Founder: “As citizens of Belize, we just felt it was our responsibility, you know, to be our brother’s keeper. so  seeing what the country was going through and still is, we felt that more needed to be done. And single parents are overwhelmed. Teachers are overwhelmed.  And so we wanted to step in to make sure that this gap was filled.  

Ann Marie Williams: “And the gap sure will be filled with Read Belize, one of the first initiatives of SPA that promises to teach 500 children to read, children of single mothers, children of single fathers and grandmothers who are guardians of children. “

Marie Munoz, Founder : “Over the course of the next three years, we’ll be teaching children how to read.  And so, if you have a child in school, if teachers want to recommend children, sometimes the parents aren’t even aware that the children aren’t able to read. And so over the last few months, I have visited, I’ve spent a lot of time at Family Court talking to single mothers who are fighting to be seen.  And we want to make sure that one of the core values of this initiative is that the fathers and the parents who are absent are drawn closer to the family so that it’s not lying on the shoulder of one parent.

Ann Marie Williams: “The success of Read Belize will not only be measured by better readers, but also with excellent reading coaches who plan to transform the lives of these children.  Safara Jenkins, a student of St. John’s College, wants to pass on her passion for reading  to children ages four to 13 years.”  

Safara Jenkins, Volunteer: “We’re looking at the basics of your alphabet of pronunciation of phonetics.  The basics of reading that we think our kids have a foundation in is actually lacking. And so that’s what we’re going to start with. And then eventually, hopefully the kids will be able to read to us and read to each other. And that’s what we’re looking forward to.”