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Background on Belize and the Toledo Region

Belize, formerly British Honduras, is a small, officially English-speaking country in Central America. Of its 350,000 people, most are of mixed African, Native American, or European descent.(1) Over ten percent are Mayan, most of whom live in the southern Toledo region.(2) The quality of life in Belize pales in comparison to that of the United States. Annual per capita income in Belize is one-seventh the U.S. average, and infant mortality is more than three times as high.(1) Measured by the United Nations Human Development Index (looking at life expectancy, educational enrollment and income), Belize’s quality of life also falls below the average for the entire Latin America and Caribbean region.(3) Moreover, these national indicators hide wide regional disparities.

Most of Toledo’s population live in thatched-roofed huts without electricity or running water.

Toledo is Belize’s southernmost region—at once its most lush and pristine as well as its poorest and least developed. The majority of Belize’s Mayan population lives in the Toledo district. Fifty-six percent of Toledo’s population is indigent compared to 11 percent across Belize as a whole. This means that half of Toledo’s citizens live in households that cannot satisfy basic food needs and maintain the healthy existence of their members.(4) Not surprisingly, Toledo has the highest rate of malnourished children in the country; over 43 percent of Toledo’s children have stunted growth. Forty-six out of every 1,000 Mayan children die before their fifth birthdays, compared to 27 out of every 1,000 children in the country as a whole.(5) Illiteracy is also high at 41 percent in Toledo versus 25 percent countrywide. Illiteracy among the Mayan population is 52 percent.(6) The region has been plagued by chronic poverty for several reasons. Most notable is the lack of education and infrastructure systems comparable to those in other regions of the country. This region of dense jungle and heavy rains has few paved roads, meaning that Toledo’s citizens are fairly isolated.

An acute lack of services compounds the misery of poverty in Toledo. The majority of Toledo’s population still relies on kerosene and lives in thatched-roofed huts, while most other Belizeans use electricity and live in concrete homes. Over half of Toledo’s families still cook over wood fires, increasing the risk of numerous respiratory illnesses.(5) Malaria is also widespread. Moreover, a large number of the political refugees who have fled to Belize from other Central American countries over the last few decades have settled in Toledo, putting even greater pressure on substandard education, health, water, and sanitation services.

Over 65 percent of Toledo’s 28,000 citizens are Mayan, and this percentage is much higher in the region’s rural areas.(7)(8) Traditional Mayan ways set most of Toledo apart culturally from the rest of Belize. Many of Toledo’s rural citizens speak either Kekchi Mayan or Mopan Mayan at home. Only 34 percent of Toledo’s adults report that they are proficient in English, compared to 54 percent nationally.(7) Lack of bilingual education means Mayan children are behind from their first day of kindergarten, while lack of fluent English limits later educational and economic activities.

Moreover, the centuries-old Mayan lifestyle is increasingly rubbing up against the global economy, with possibly disastrous consequences for this already disenfranchised group. Subsistence agriculture based on corn and rice forms the basis of the rural Toledo economy. Increasingly, though, men and women work on plantations producing crops for export. While cash incomes bring opportunity, they also bring trouble. Alcohol abuse among men, often leading to abuse of and malnourishment of women and children, is becoming more prevalent. Further, traditional communal land tenancy patterns give Mayans as a whole an insecure footing in the face of impending economic development and the government’s temptation to sell or lease traditional Mayan lands to foreign logging companies. Recently discovered oil reserves in Belize further threaten Mayan land security.

Sources:

1) Population Reference Bureau; World Population Data Sheet; 2010 (website)

2) U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, World Fact Book; 2010 (website)

3) United Nations Development Programme, Human Development Index; 2009 (website)

4) Government of Belize, National Human Development Advisory Committee; Belize 2002 Poverty Assessment Report; 2004

5) Statistical Institute of Belize, Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey; 2006

6) Ministry of Education, Belize National Literacy Survey, 1996

7) Government of Belize; Population and Housing Censuses; 2000

8) Statistical Institute of Belize, Know Your Statistics; 2007

Background on Belize

• Overview of Education in the Toledo Region
• Toledo's Educators Voice Their Needs

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