Kick-off day

Children opening school supplies.

Project: Improving the level of writing, reading and communication skills - September 2007-June 2008

This project is a continuation of the project we had in the previous academic years. Its objective is to improve the writing, reading and communications skills of the children. The project works with the children, teachers and parents for this purpose- see below for details and pictures of this very successful project. Given the excellent results we had, we decided to extend the project. This time we are working with a different school in the same general area: Colegio Tecnológico Juvenil Altos de las Palmas. The majority of the children are African Colombian whose families have been displaced by the ongoing Colombian conflict. These children present different challenges given their culture and background.

March 2008

The progress of the children has been remarkable. The individual attention they receive has had a significant impact in their behavior and motivation. The impact is also noticeable in the improvement of the teachers who are learning new techniques and better teaching habits from the coordinators.
	The children love the attention. The progress has been remarkable
Special Gift Gabby, a 13 year old from New York collected school supplies for the children. In addition, she sent a lovely letter to them personalizing her great effort. The children obviously loved and appreciated the supplies as you can appreciate in the pictures. They were particularly touched by the interest of a girl in the US for them. The children kept asking what grade was she in, is she coming to visit us, how did she get all of those things. Thanks Gaby for your example! It is exciting to use the new material


We love the new supplies..... they are great!

As mentioned in previous reports, we paid for a badly needed retention wall that not only saved the school from coming down the hill but allowed to have a safe play ground space for the children. Also, the children and students from the vocational project are planting trees in the area. We hope that in the near future this will be a beautiful park for the children and the local community. See Las Palmas for details on the retention wall.	We hope one day this side of the hill will look like the other side

June 2007

This Project has been the most challenging; however, the response of the children continues to be encouraging. The challenges are caused by the childrens' behavior, which is a result of their families focus on survival, and changes in the school, as well as the physical difficulty in reaching the neighborhood. The area where this project is taking place is a neighborhood completely made up of displaced families. Several families are squeezed in very small rooms and privacy is almost non-existent. The main objective of these families is survival, and many times the children are not given the love and attention they need. In addition, the children are exposed to very stressful family situations that impact their behavior and concentration while at school. In particular, there is a lack of respect toward parents, teachers or any kind of authority and most important a lack of self-esteem. To add to these family challenges, the school itself had several problems this year.

There were several changes in the teachers. The area is difficult to reach – the roads are unpaved and the rainy season has been very intense in the first part of the year. Therefore, the teachers are discouraged by these physical challenges and the childrens' behavior.

On the positive side, the only constant for these children this year has been the work we are doing in this program. The childrens' response to the coordinators continues to be encouraging. The coordinators, Luisa Fernanda and Francia, continue with dedication and love to give guidance and support to the children, despite the physical difficulties and daily challenges. They work with the teachers to improve their teaching techniques, work with the last year Phonology students from the local University who do their practice at the school as part of this program, and refer the children that need physiological or other type of medical attention. Most of all, they work with the children based on the interest expressed by the children and the talents they observe. The progress of the children, though slower than expected, is evident.

ColombiaCare financed the construction of a retention wall of the school which was at risk of falling due to erosion. The construction has been delayed due to the rainy season mentioned above and the difficulty in delivering the material. However, it started and is progressing as it can be observed in the picture. More details here.

The students of the Carpentry program will be planting trees in the school yard as part of their community activities.

February 2007

This Project is still a great success. The coordinators who work with the children continue to identify learning disabilities and other issues. They are addressing those issues pertinent to their skills and referring others to the appropriate entity. In addition, the coordinators are working with the teachers to address some of the issues they have identified. Now that the coordinators have been working with the program since September 2006 and know the skills and weakness of the children better, they have designed the activities and the teams in such a way that there is a better balance. This allows them to address the weaknesses and provide opportunities for the childrens' talents to flourish.

The coordinators in action

The impact of this project on the children is evident. The teachers have noticed improvement in the childrens' academic performance. The children love the activities of this project. It allows them to express themselves in an individual manner and to develop their own hidden talents.

Doing team work

Posing for the camera….

An example that illustrates the impact of the program is the interest and the participation of the older boys 12 to 15 years old in the activities of the program. Given the difficult environment in which these children are growing up – gangs, violence, and drugs daily occurrences in this area – they tend to be aggressive and intimidating towards the teachers. In fact, some teachers are afraid to request their attention or demand discipline. When the Communication project started in this school, the attitude of the older boys was indeed negative and dismissive towards the activities and the project coordinators. However, when the coordinators didn't appear intimidated at all and approached them in a very respectful but firm way, the boys felt “disarmed” and started to cooperate. Today, not only do they participate in all of the activities, but they are helping with the younger children. See the picture where the older boys are teaching a dance move to a younger boy.

The older boys showing a little one some “moves” – they love break dance

When is my turn?

December 2006:Despite the short time that the project started, the children reception and improvement has been very noticeable.

The young boy that appears in the picture had polio and has some severe language difficulties. With this project he will be receiving the attention and therapy that otherwise he wouldn't have
The university students with the school children. The children love the attention caring and enthusiasm of these young women.

Our Third Project: Improving the level of writing, reading and communication skills - September 2005-June 2006

July 2006: This project concluded in June 2006 with the end of the school year. However, there was a continuation of the effort in the form of a summer program with the children. Some of us had the opportunity to see in person the extraordinary results of this project. The improvement in the children is very noticeable in their work and in their attitude. The work that the two mentors, Luisa and Francia are doing with these children is very impressive. (See a note on these two exceptional women here). In addition, as part of the project there was a library built and provided with books. We want to thank Marsha Vaughan who gave a significant donation to buy books for the library. See pictures below of the library. The children and teachers were provided again with school supplies that were given to ColombiaCare by the First Presbyterian Church in Howell – courtesy of Kelly Santangelo and Wendy Harman.

The children are now on vacation from school and for the first time in their lives they are attending a summer program. The summer activities are being conducted in the same school and neighboring areas. And again, Luisa and Francia are the ones leading the effort. Below are some of the pictures at the end of their school year and the summer camp.

Children interviewing a teacher as part of their final assignment

Doing some team activities

Learning table manners

Showing off some of their work

Doing a folkloric dance

Playing in the summer camp

Art craft in the summer camp

Showing off their team effort - a beautiful clay elephant

The library

Putting the shelves together

Getting there....

Starts looking nice

Yes....

Indeed...

Now I can use it, finally!

January 2006:There are workshops for each one of the six school grades. In each one, the children selected the theme. In addition to the workshops, the students must conduct research with the support of the teachers, parents and team members as appropriate. Research and team effort is a novelty for the school. With their inclusion in the program, the objective is to stimulate not only reading and the use of references, but also the children's behavior in working with others. This includes, specifically, learning to listen to others' opinions, follow rules, and understand roles and responsibilities. As part of the workshop, each class has a “Newspaper”. This is also something new to the children. The Instructors are giving children who had been evaluated as needing extra support (see July 2005 below) individualized attention. The Instructors are also working with the regular teachers to ensure not only that the new educational approaches are implemented in their regular job, but also that the progress made by the children is not lost.

Children in the workshops Working in team.... a novelty!	In addition to the workshops, some of the physical limitations of the school have been addressed. For example, to reduce the noise between the various classrooms, there was some re-organization of activities and functions of the various rooms. Also, several cosmetic changes, including a serious clean-up, were given to the classrooms, cafeteria and the recreation area to make them more pleasant to the children. The children have accepted the workshops very well. The regular teachers have also accepted the new approaches and some of them are already using some of them. So far significant progress has been observed in areas such as use of the language, better personal presentation, respect of taking turns to speak and better listening. There are other areas, such as learning to perform research outside of the workshops and accepting new learning techniques, that are lagging. The level of progress varies in the various grades, but in general we are all satisfied with the progress made and we are hopeful that by the end of the academic year we will see lasting changes in both the children and their teachers. See the pictures of the children and their work in the workshops.
Learning with new techniques	Newspaper
Working hard	Celebrating end of first phase of program
Teacher applying new approaches	Helping to fix the school

September 2005: At the beginning of the school year several meetings were held with the parents, teachers and students to kick-off the program. During these meetings, it was explained the objectives, schedule of activities and details of the program. This was done in an interactive manner receiving input from all to ensure their participation and commitment to the program.

As part of the kick-off of the program, the children and teachers were provided with school supplies that were given to ColombiaCare by the First Presbyterian Church in Howell – courtesy of Kelly Santangelo and Wendy Harman. The supplies had been taken this summer to Colombia . See pictures on the side.

July 2005: Conducted the initial assessment of the school facilities and the students. This initial evaluation would determine the direction and emphasis of the program that will start in September at the beginning of the school year. In terms of the facilities they were found average. The major problem found was the noise in the class-rooms. Unfortunately, to provide good ventilation the windows need to be opened which allows the passage of noise from one class-room to another.

The students were submitted to various tests to evaluate their communication skills and their performance doing some tasks. For the communications skills, factors such as oral expression, reading comprehension and memory were observed. For their performance of tasks factors such as, following directions, application of knowledge, care in performing tasks, interpersonal relations were observed. In average, the 75 students evaluated were found to be at a “caution level”. That is, if nothing is done to improve their skills, their learning at school will be very limited.