Sponsors

A thank you to our sponsors

We would like to express our gratitude to everyone who donated to our cause through funding specific projects or allowing us to use resources for free. We have been nothing but humbled by the love and support we got from people! We want you to know that our work would not be possible without this support. We hope that dedicating this small page to you shows our appreciation even more.

Louise Belanger

Louise is from the UK and has a BA degree in Ceramics from Central St Martins, London UK. She taught art in London secondary schools for several years, specialising in drawing and ceramics. Her love of ancient history and archaeology led to illustration work during the vacations on archaeology projects in Turkey, Italy and Belize. In 1980 her career took a new direction when she joined the Lamanai Archaeology Project in Belize as a full-time illustrator. She spent several months of each year in the field illustrating ceramics and stone artefacts, producing drawings and paintings of vessels, masks, and architectural reconstructions of the structures on the site.

Louise continues to be involved in projects at Lamanai and its archaeological heritage. In 2000, workshops in crafts were set up for villagers as part of a Craft Development Project funded by the British High Commission, and the Canadian Fund for Local Initiatives. Louise organised several workshops in ceramics for village residents. These workshops, alongside the development of jewellery making, sparked an interest amongst the residents. The possibilities of the ways that Maya imagery from artefacts from the site could be used to make and sell crafts to tourists, and provide an economic base for small businesses.

In 2001 as part of the Tourism Development Project, she researched the methods and techniques of building with lime and stucco and co-ordinated work on the restoration of limestone masks on the major temple structures.

The idea for producing a guidebook for the Lamanai archaeology site grew out of requests from the local guides. Using the reconstruction illustrations of the main structures, a simple guide was produced showing the architectural phases and a brief history of the site. Over the next few years, this book grew into a more ambitious project. It enabled village residents to learn more about the site and to benefit economically. In 2016 Louise helped one of the guides in Indian Church to set up a Recipe and Herbal Walk booklet, and also organised the publication of the Altun Ha guidebook. She continues to be interested in fostering the transmission of the wealth of archaeological and historical information produced by research to the people of Belize.

Louise has not only been providing great insights to produce learning materials but kindly offered her illustrations and guidebooks free of charge. We also owe thank you to the archaeologists David Pendergast and Elizabeth Graham. They not only donated to our cause but also participated in the writing of the mentioned guidebooks.