During a Christmas lunch in December 2010, Jiji mentioned to Mr. David (owner and CEO of Texops) that when the Garrobo project is financially sustainable, its next project will be a daycare for Texops. (Context: In July 2010, Jiji started fleshing out the concept of the Garrobo Project to implement it as a pilot project).

He liked the idea of a Texops daycare but said that we need not wait for the time that the Garrobo Project becomes sustainable; we can start as soon as we can.

Jiji asked Ana Ruth (head of HR at the time) to immediately start a survey in Texops to determine if the need for a daycare indeed exists. We visited two other daycares being operated by factories in the area: one in Picacho (this factory closed three years ago) and one in American Park where parents pay $30/month/child and the company they work for pay $70.00/month/child for the service.

Long story short: There was a need in Texops, but parents wanted many other things besides, such as: free transport, free this and free that…

The renovation for the place to house the nursery started soon and the daycare opened in August 2011 with three children, a head teacher and a helper. She however resigned after 2 months.

Yolanda Rivera, an experienced elementary school teacher was hired and is now the administrator-directress of Colegio de Vida Integral Montessori with 60 children enrolled.