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The Rotary Club of Toronto-Leaside |
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Report on Project Activities in Estelí, Nicaragua for January 2003 Pre-School The year began well for the pre-school with staff starting work in the very first days of the month cleaning the classrooms, planning activities and curriculum and working on the pre-school budget for the year. Class started on January 6th. As happened last year, initial take up of places was slow. But we still finished the month with a total of 32 children attending – 19 boys and 13 girls. We also visited 6 children whose parents were uncertain, for financial reasons, that they would be able to attend the pre-school to re-assure them that we would be able to help them with reduced fees This year the pre-school will use techniques learned during workshops given by the Ministry of Education last year to monitor the emotional and psychological development of the children. Each child will have its development recorded on file. This year, rather than have a psychologist working with the children two or three days a week, the project workers have decided to see how the children develop and request support from a psychologist when they perceive a real need. All the children are monitored for physical development with monthly measurements for weight and height. The project staff participated in the first training and orientation workshop of the year given by the local Ministry of Education office. At the end of the month staff held a meeting with the parents of the children attending the pre-school. Parents have brought decorative items from the home to put in the pre-school to make it easier for the children to adapt to their new environment. The parents expressed satisfaction with the work done to improve the pre-school classrooms and the general state of the site. Everyone was concerned during the month by the unusually cold weather which made it necessary to pay more attention than usual to prevent children getting chest complaints and colds. Throughout the Estelí area stomach infections were more frequent as a result of the large number of flies. At the pre-school we managed to avoid this health problem by taking even more care than usual with food preparation and hygiene. Health The health program has been re-organized in a new location on the project site thanks to donation last year from Jim and Helen Merritt and from Ellen Parlow. The main activity in January was support for a visit from Dr. Peter Loewinthan of the Dorchester House Multi-Service Centre in Boston accompanied by final year medical student Joshua Kantrowitz. They visited a total of fifteen rural communities and urban barrios in Estelí and Matagalpa during their visit, seeing over 800 patients. We are grateful to FUNDECI for facilitating the reception of Peter and Joshua in Managua. In January too we received a donation of US$3,000 from Illinois via the DeKalb Interfaith Network which will enable us to fund the core activities of our small health program for the rest of the year. These core activities will be:
Trabajo Social The skills training program continues the same schedule worked out in the second semester of last year with classes four days a week incorporating half hour workshops on, self-esteem, domestic violence, coping with adolescence and presentations on Nicaraguan family law. We also began clothes-making classes with three young women once a week. And we have been trying to set up a baking class. This is planned to start in February. All these activities will make a significant difference to the economic situation of the participants. The social work team made several visits to the penitentiary in Estelí to coordinate the program for the year with the prison authorities. The program includes the human relations workshops which were so successful last year. In addition, this year the prison authorities have authorised the social work team to begin a support program for prisoners who need legal advice. Many prisoners are imprisoned for lack of access to good legal services. We have already made good progress in one case of a prisoner from the northern town of Somoto. Environmental Workshop The environmental workshop staff worked all through January doing cleaning and maintenance work on the site and its buildings. The school classrooms and the pre-school were all painted. Minor improvements were made to the partitions between the classrooms. The wooden floor of the classrooms was taken up and re-laid to make good gaps between the boarding and to repair damaged timber. The site finally has a secure gate, made by the workshop, to replace the original gate which was already falling apart when the programs started at this site in January 1999. A local small business that depends on a well for its water supply ordered a bicycle pump for installation in the first week of February. The workshop also received news that a grant of US$3,500 has been approved by the European Third World Association to supply and install 10 bicycle pumps and water supply systems for small farmers in the department of Madriz. Education Program The education program started work on January 6th enrolling students for the Adult baccalaureate program for Weekday night classes, Saturday classes and Sunday classes. Enrolment has been higher this year for the Saturday classes, similar to last year for the Sunday classes and lower than last year for the night classes. The Sunday and Saturday classes began on the second weekend of January. The night classes were scheduled to begin on February 4th. Much of the month was taken up by planning activities with the teaching staff working together on how best to design the classroom timetable and on how to improve teaching practice generally as a team. At a meeting on January 22nd in the Ministry of education in Managua, the Director of Secondary Education for Nicaragua met with the directors of all the schools participating in the adult baccalaureate program. Our school continues to have the best exam results of any of the participating schools. We head a successful meeting with the departmental delegate of the Ministry of Education in Estelí to coordinate administrative details of the weekend classes. Each of our students is issued with an identity card which they will need to present whenever they sit an exam supervised by the Ministry of Education. We are pleased that despite the intense academic timetable we have still been able to include classes for the students on human relations, personal development, domestic violence, health education and labour rights. Towards end of January we were still uncertain that we would be able to guarantee transport home each night for the night class students. We expect to have resolved that problem before class begins on February 4th through an agreement with a local bus owner. |
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