Porque creemos que la educación es un elemento clave para acabar con la pobreza, nos esforzamos por mejorar la calidad no sólo de las competencias de los profesores y el equipamiento, sino también por mejorar las escuelas para que los niños quieran seguir estudiando.
Vea el siguiente vídeo y conocer cómo un poco hace mucho por las comunidades más vulnerables y olvidadas.
Gracias al apoyo del Grupo Santuario de Baja de Sur, de Palo Alto, California, por financiar este proyecto.
Better Schools, Brighter Futures Because we believe that education is a key element in ending poverty, we strive to improve the quality not only of teachers’ skills and equipment, but also to improve infrastructure so that children will want to stay in school.
Watch this video and learn how a little goes a long way for the most vulnerable and neglected communities.
Thank you to the support of the South Bay Sanctuary Covenant Group of Palo Alto, California for funding this project.
El Salvador’s public school students, both rural and urban, are facing an uncertain academic future due to COVID-19. As institutional disorganization at a national level leads to essential services, like education, becoming too complicated for communities to maneuver, at the same time, the Ministry of Education expects teachers, who have had very little experience with technology, to learn said technology on their own and teach via digital platforms to students who themselves often times cannot afford internet to access these platforms.
The Centro Escolar Amando Lopez Technology Lab is an inter-institutional initiative to connect teachers and students with the technology they need to advance in their academic goals. While we are confident that MINED will eventually achieve coherent policies and practices, we also recognize the current threat of mass retention and desertion looming over the country’s schools located in more marginalized regions.
This week we concluded our program and staff development as well as community orientations. Next Tuesday (7/28) the program begins!
In the end, we hope that this project can be an example of how to run a rural mobile technology lab, both during and after a pandemic.
Moviéndose con Propósito: El Uso de la Tecnología para Mantener el Alumnado en la Escuela
Lxs estudiantes de escuelas públicas de El Salvador, tanto rurales como urbanos, enfrentan un futuro académico incierto debido a COVID-19. Por la desorganización institucional a nivel nacional, los servicios esenciales, como la educación, se vuelven demasiado complicados para que las comunidades puedan gestionar y, al mismo tiempo, el Ministerio de Educación espera que la facultad de la escuelas, que tienen muy poca experiencia con la tecnología, aprendan dicha tecnología por su cuenta y enseñar a través de plataformas digitales a estudiantes, pero ellxs mismxs muchas veces no pueden pagar por internet para acceder a estas plataformas.
El Laboratorio Tecnológico del Centro Escolar Amando López es una iniciativa interinstitucional para conectar a maestrxs y estudiantes con la tecnología que necesitan para avanzar en sus objetivos académicos. Si bien confiamos en que MINED finalmente logrará políticas y prácticas coherentes, también reconocemos la amenaza actual de retención y deserción masiva, que se cierne sobre las escuelas del país ubicadas en regiones más marginadas.
Esta semana, concluimos nuestras reuniones de desarrollo del programa y de personal, así como las orientaciones de la comunidad. ¡El próximo martes (28/7) comienza el programa!
A fin de cuentas, esperamos que este proyecto pueda ser un ejemplo de cómo ejecutar un laboratorio educativo rural, tanto durante como después de una pandemia.
This year the Learner’s team grew and we were lucky to welcome back Jack and Jeremy and welcome for the first time Justin, Andrew, Quinn and Daniel.
Not only did the Learners’ team grow since their last visit but the group that participated in the chess camp grew as well. Enthusiastic young people from six neighboring communities came to Amando Lopez to join in on the fun activities Learner’s team had planned.
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Before heading to the Bajo Lempa, the group explored San Salvador, the countries capital city. They hiked a volcano, walked around the historical center, leathered about important Salvadoran history, ate pupusas and even visited the Chess Federation of El Salvador. In the Bajo Lempa, when they weren’t planning chess, the team got to tour the community, it’s schools, the forests and even a local zoo.
Close to 100 players participated in this year’s tournament and of course, everyone was a winner!
In the end, the Learner’s team sat down with the community to help them develop their own local chess club which we are very excited about.
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We know a lot of planning and fundraising went into this delegation which is why we want to thank Learners Without Borders, the young coaches for spending a part of their summer with us, and their families and friends who made this all possible.
Students bus in from neighboring communities to attend classes at the primary school of our partner community Amando Lopez. Before 2014, many parents and guardians were comfortable enough sending kids to school on their own but that all changed after a wave of violence struck the Bajo Lempa. These communities reached out to VOICES, and with the help from the South Bay Sanctuary Covenant group- we began to finance a safe and free school transportation system which has led to an improvement of school retention in the Bajo Lempa.
The training portion of Project ECHO (Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes) came to an end last month with the second and final session of Bajo Lempa participants being certified as Sexual and Reproductive Health educators by a group of medical professionals from the University of New Mexico. In total, 41 teachers and 17 community health promoters participated in the program.
Over the last two weeks we had the pleasure of hosting Nutritionist, Grace Palm and Gynecologist, Hannah Palm; the two health education consultants from UNM. Since the beginning, these two young doctors have showed nothing but dedication and proved vital in the development of ECHO materials and as facilitators during the video trainings. They came to visit the communities, conduct in-person focus studies and sit in on some of the classes being replicated during their stay.
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Two groups of teachers, one group of health promoters and one group of school administrators participated in the focus studies where conversations were constructive, collaborative and full of ideas for the future. The classes they observed were well prepared and well taught and most teachers adapted ECHO’s methodology to fit their own group dynamics.
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Jose Acosta, VOICES’ director expressed during the final evaluation with school administrators, “If this proves a successful method to adequately capacitate those who’s role it is to impart such programs, the goal to ultimately implement the ECHO model into the education curriculum can be realized.
The two with their host family and VOICES’ executive director.
Photos of classes being reproduced in schools and communities:
We are very excited to share with you a new educational program in the Bajo Lempa that seeks to raise the literacy rates in Community Octavio Ortiz.
This literacy program is in coordination with the Community Board of Directors, the Ministry of Education (MINED) and Voices on the Border; who are managing and finincing the program with funds donated by Arlene Schaupp, a long-time supporter of VOICES who remains in solidarity with the Salvadoran people.
Eleven students from the same community, in their third cycle of schooling (grades 10-12), are the ones facilitating the classes for the adults and seniors, using material provided by MINED. For the next three months, these young people will work with their elders for two hours a day, from Monday to Friday with one goal in mind:
In community Amando Lopez, education is extremely important which is why VOICES has helped and continues to support the operation of a Special Needs Classroom that benefits 6 neighboring communities. Look inside and watch the effort and successes of Mabel Barrera, the popular education teacher offering specialized education, a service virtually unheard of in El Salvador.
Help us support Mabel’s classroom by clicking here and making a designated donation to the “Aula de Apoyo.”
VOICES is excited to announce that we have begun to support the work of the Youth Association for the Development of Morazán (AJUDEM) of Ciudad Segundo Montes. This our third youth group after OSCA in CSM and OSMIJ in Cacaopera.
We were really impressed by their leadership skills, their diverse initiatives, willingness to go beyond their borders and ability to coordinate massive events all on a volunteer basis and fully autonomously. Voices is committed to supporting AJUDEM’s own agenda of activities for the children, teens and senior citizens of Segundo Montes and their their bi-annual Medical Brigades to the remote Municipality of Nahuaterique in the mountains of northern Morazán.
Asociación Juvenil para el Desarrollo de Morazán
VOICES se complace en anunciar que hemos comenzado a apoyar el trabajo de la Asociación Juvenil para el Desarrollo de Morazán (AJUDEM) de Ciudad Segundo Montes. Este es nuestro tercer grupo de jóvenes después de OSCA en CSM y OSMIJ en Cacaopera.
Estábamos realmente impresionados por sus habilidades de liderazgo, sus diversas iniciativas, la voluntad de ir más allá de sus fronteras y la capacidad de coordinar eventos masivos todos en forma voluntaria y de manera totalmente autónoma. Voices se compromete a apoyar la propia agenda de actividades de AJUDEM para los niños, adolescentes y ancianos de Segundo Montes y sus Brigadas Médicas bianuales al remoto Municipio de Nahuaterique en las montañas del norte de Morazán.
Voices on the Border 