Located in a poor barrio (shanty town) of Caracas, the capital of Venezuela, the Juan Bautista Alberdi is a school like many others the world over - a place where children and adults alike come to study on a daily basis, teachers devote their lives to the education of others, and the screaming sounds of happy children reverberate in the empty classrooms while basketball, baseball and other games take place in the playground.

Yet this is one school with a difference.

The Alberdi is a school that has been taken over, renovated, managed and is taught by a mixture of parents, unpaid teachers, and concerned local people, after being closed down and boarded up by local authorities in 2002.
The school receives minimal funding and its teachers do not get a wage. Materials such as books and teaching equipment are in short supply and the classrooms, although clean, need to be restructured and modernised.

However, notwithstanding the economical problems and the constant struggle with the local government to keep the structure open, this school thrives, supported by a poor community’s desire to give their children the chance of a brighter future. I have never found anywhere else a more committed group of people - from the positive and energetic students to the caring and dedicated staff, they all tirelessly work together to make a collective dream become a vivid and inspiring reality.

In November 2004 I visited the country for a period of 3 months: I wanted to see for myself the social changes that had been taking place since 1998, when President Hugo Chavez had been elected into office. It was while travelling through that I came into contact with teachers from the Juan Bautista Alberdi School, who told me their story and invited me to Manicomio to see with my own eyes what they had achieved.