ROTP gathers supplies for schools in rural Oaxaca.

This fall students in the U.S. are reaching out to students in Mexico by donating their old and new school items. For six weeks kids will be gathering things like pencils, notebooks, crayons, and other basics to send to schools along the Copalita and Zimatan Rivers, in the southern state of Oaxaca.

Oaxaca's Sierra Madre del Sur is one of the poorest regions in the Western Hemisphere. It leads Mexico in every measure of poverty - things like infant mortality, life expectancy, and disease. This is a place where 1 in 5 children dies before their first birthday, where over 90% of people are underfed, malnourished, or starving.

To make matters worse, teachers and schools in Oaxaca have been under siege by the same government that is supposed to protect them. Two years ago the state brutally attacked the annual teacher's strike in Oaxaca City, killing 4 teachers and 1 American - journalist Bradley Will. Educators, indigenous groups, and others resonded with an all out rebellion, demanding justice for the victims and an end to the current regime.

Sad to say, they didn't get it.

Since then dozens of teachers have been murdered. Hundreds have been drug from their classrooms and beaten in front of their students. And still a frighteningly unknown number have simply 'disappeared'.

The government's dirty war against the Teacher's Union has left an already struggling school system in shambles. The flow of textbooks, supplies, and free lunches has stopped. Many of the schools have simply been abandoned, their teachers left to their own resources.

As tragic as it all sounds, it is the children that suffer most. Without functioning schools most kids will never learn to read or write. By age 10 or 11 most will leave for the fields uneducated and illiterate, and further feed the cycle of poverty.

Our supply drive will focus on providing as many students as possible with enough basic items for one school year. These are things like pencils, pencil sharpeners, crayons, notebooks, erasers, etc. All items will go to schools in villages along the Copalita and Zimatan Rivers, around 15 - 30 miles inland from the port of Santa Cruz Huatulco.

We realize that this project is a drop in the bucket toward improving the state of life in Oaxaca. But it is real drop. New supplies can breathe life into struggling teachers. A few pencils and some paper might be the difference in a child learning to read and write.

If you are an educator, or anyone interested in participating in this project, PLEASE CONTACT ME at brian.e.snyder@gmail.com. We would love to have you on board. Thanks again for your interest. Take care y vaya bien.