Schools for Children of the World

In 1996, Dr. William DeJong, went with his then 16 year old son to do service work through the organization Heart to Honduras in a rural village near the organization's Honduran complex. While he was there he recognized the dilapidated condition of the school buildings and the under served population of rural students. He made the decision to return to the United States and form a team who could return to Honduras to do a more thorough assessment of the facilities in the area he had visited.

In April of 1997 Dr. DeJong and a group of architects, engineers, and planners of the organization CEFPI teamed up and traveled to Honduras to evaluate the school buildings in a rural mountain area of the departments of Cortes and Comayagua. They found buildings of sticks and mud serving as schools, and in some areas, school being held under trees. With the assessments in hand, the group returned to North America and created a report of recommendations for building guidelines.

Since then, SCW has organized semiannual volunteer trips to Honduras to help renovate dilapidated schools, and the group has fundraised and built five schools in Honduras and one in Nicaragua. SCW became an official 501(c)(3) organization in the United States in 2003 and was contracted by the Honduras Ministry of Education to develop a National School Facility Master Plan. In addition, SCW has expanded and done work in the African countries of Kenya and Tanzania.

DeJONG-RICHTER and its employees have long been major supporters of the international humanitarian efforts of SCW, and will continue to help provide educational opportunities to under-served children throughout the world.