Visiting our children!
Date: December 10, 2020 | Autor: Aula Mágica | Tags:
Dear friends,
Over the past seven months, everyone at Aula Mágica, including each of our 27 Facilitators, has been working from home. During this challenging period however, the Facilitators have been using their time profitably. They have created new teaching materials and studied a great amount of material including children’s books and audio resources that will form part of our educational programme. This has been a valuable opportunity for our Facilitators to strengthen their knowledge and teaching skills, which will definitely benefit our children once we return to provide formal classroom based education to our children.
A number of weeks ago, we assessed the situation in each of the communities where we work, and fortunately, we were able to confirm that some of the communities were not affected by Covid-19. In these communities we decided to resume our education provision, taking into account the fact that Facilitators live within the same community, and ensuring that all the necessary hygiene precautions were in place: using masks, washing hands and using sanitising hand gel. The resumption of our work involved one-to-one teaching, with the Facilitators visiting each child and providing them with a lesson of at least one hour.
Unfortunately, over a period of more than seven months, our children had not been able to receive any education. The communities where we work are very rural and remote and therefore do not have access to the Internet, meaning that they are not able to study online.
Our Facilitators have now been visiting our students for five weeks, and we have received considerable support from their parents who are appreciative that their children can receive their classes. Equally, our children are delighted to be studying once again with their teacher. All of us at Aula Mágica are very happy that we can support our children during these turbulent and challenging times.
Our commitment to support our children is as strong as ever, and the plan is for our Facilitators to visit each of our children until the 18th December, 2020. This will allow us to catch up on some of the time that we have lost with our children. We know that the most important things are our children and their education.
In the communities where we work and where there have unfortunately been cases of Covid-19, our Facilitators continue working from home, creating new teaching materials and generally preparing themselves for when they will be able to provide classes to our children.
The schools in Guatemala have remained closed since March, and the Government has said that in-person classes have finished for 2020 so children will not be returning to school.
We will keep you up to date with how things progress regarding our new approach to education brought on by Covid-19.
We hope that you are keeping very well and we send you our best wishes!
Aula Mágica Guatemala.