School Complex “La Presa” inaugurated in Ecatepec thanks to a virtuous partnership between the community, the Alberto Baillères Foundation, and authorities

The recovery of four campuses in the area was implemented using the “Social Model” implemented by the Foundation.
The project contributes to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations 2030 Agenda.
UNESCO Mexico documents the process of designing and building 21^st century educational habitats.

Mexico City, November 5, 2021 - Yesterday, the Alberto Baillères Foundation, the government of the State of Mexico, Ecatepec municipal authorities and residents, and representatives of the UNESCO Office in Mexico inaugurated the School Complex “La Presa”, which serves more than 2,600 pre-primary, primary, and lower and upper secondary school students and whose facilities were damaged by the earthquakes of September 8 and 19, 2017.

The rehabilitation of Primaria Amado Nervo (Primary School), Jardín de Niños Benito Juárez (Kindergarten), Preparatoria Oficial 110 Alfredo Ramírez Sánchez (Upper Secondary School), and Escuela Secundaria Técnica Industrial y Comercial (ESTIC) N° 120 Mario Molina Henríquez (Technical, Industrial, and Trade Secondary School) was made possible thanks to the “Social Model for strengthening education communities” that the Alberto Baillères Foundation undertook in response to the need to rebuild damaged education infrastructure.

The core of this Model, which the UNESCO Office in Mexico has documented since 2019, is shared work and decision-making between each community, the government, civil society, and international organizations. In 2018, on the basis of the Model, the Alberto Baillères Foundation designed and rebuilt educational spaces in the neighborhood of La Presa, one of the most socially vulnerable areas of the municipality of Ecatepec in the State of Mexico.

Working from an innovative architectural proposal of co-creation with the community, the rehabilitation included quality spaces for academic work and areas for coexistence and collaborative work among students, educators, and families. As a result of consultations with families and students and a series of participative experiences, play areas were also recovered and installations were created to provide access for people with special needs, in line with Target 4.a of Sustainable Development Goal 4. The four campuses of the School Complex “La Presa” are joined by a shared walkway.

The inauguration ceremony was held in the central courtyard of Primaria Amado Nervo (Primary School), located just a few meters from the site where the original campus was established in the 1980s. Presiding over the activities were Alfredo Del Mazo Maza, governor of the State of Mexico; Fernando Vilchis Contreras, mayor of Ecatepec; Alejandro Baillères Gual, President of Grupo Bal’s board of directors and Vice President of the Alberto Baillères Foundation; Rosy Gluyas, Director General of the Alberto Baillères Foundation; and Mrs. Patricia Sánchez Pedraza, a parent from Ecatepec de Morelos.

The rehabilitation of the campuses, said Mayor Vilchis, has made it possible to set dynamics of participation and joint responsibility in motion in the area to create appropriate conditions for attending the school.

“Joining forces is essential to this important work, as it refers not only to agreement and coordination between the various levels of government but the key participation of society through altruistic organizations like the one led by our friend Alberto Baillères,” Vilchis stressed.

For Dr. Rosy Gluyas, Director General of the Baillères Foundation, the project made it possible to create bonds of trust, respect, and solidarity with and among the community and with local authorities, and, above all, to offer better opportunities for development for Ecatepec students. She recalled the willingness that teaching staff and families at Primaria Amado Nervo (Primary School) expressed to rebuild the school that, almost 40 years ago, many of them helped to build themselves on a plot of land shared with a pepper tree which today serves as the school’s symbol.

“The message to the Foundation was loud and clear: nothing is going to hold us back as a community. In that moment, human willingness to keep advancing children’s lives through education meant more than the fallen boards… There were no excuses for having the dream of continuing to learn,” Dr. Gluyas said.

She thanked Mr. Alberto Baillères for having been present at every moment, idea, and decision throughout the process of dialogue, listening, and co-creation with the community. “Today, Mr. Alberto Baillères reaffirms his commitment to and love for Mexico, in the firm belief that education is a driving force of transformation to boost the great potential and human development of all of us as complete individuals, united as Mexicans to elevate the greatness of Mexico,” Gluyas told attendees.

Speaking in representation of the community’s mothers, who were a driving force in the reconstruction process, Patricia Sánchez Pedraza thanked the authorities and the Foundation for their support and asked those present to recognize all the mothers who managed to motivate the La Presa community to achieve this goal. “We are committed to taking care of and preserving the tools we’ve received, because it’s not just a building— it’s bonds of trust. We’re building a stronger, more solid community,” Sánchez said.

Alejandro Baillères Gual, President of the Grupo Bal board of directors and Vice President of the Alberto Baillères Foundation, shared with attendees the improvements made to facilities which will contribute to healthy coexistence. He recognized the “strength and willpower of this community,” which inspired the design of the spaces like the walkway which joins the school complex’s four campuses and features a narrative of the history of the complex’s birth and evolution. Likewise, he called for the inauguration ceremony “to serve to bring together efforts and endeavors in favor of this education community’s development and to show that joining forces allows us to achieve great challenges.”

Finally, State of Mexico Governor Alfredo Del Mazo Maza recalled the serious damage endured by more than 4,900 schools in the state, including those which today make up the School Complex “La Presa”, whose activities had to be held in temporary classrooms for over two years.

“This was not just about a reconstruction based on partition walls and building a new school: what was achieved here was the integration of the community. Instead of three or four different schools, what was achieved here was making all of them one school complex and a source of pride for the entire community, where all of you made it your own because all of you made a tremendous effort,” the governor emphasized.

With the Social Model, the Alberto Baillères Foundation and the UNESCO Office in Mexico work on the design and construction of 21^st century educational habitats. This implies making schools a place for the development and care of all those who share them, fostering participatory processes and the joint construction of inclusive education environments. In this way, both organizations contribute to achieving the 2030 Agenda and promote the exercise of the right of all people to education, especially those who require greater support due to experiencing conditions of vulnerability.

Source UNESCO