Education Puerto Rico Project #30818

Standing Strong

by Boys & Girls Clubs of Puerto Rico Inc.

Project Report | Sep 22, 2020
Still Standing Strong

By Astrid Guerra | Grants & Quality Assurance Leader

COVID Impact

Greetings from Puerto Rico!

It gives me great pleasure to say hello, I was looking forward to let you know about us! It's been six months since the entire population of Puerto Rico went into a mandatory quarantine imposed through an executive order by the Governor to prevent the spread of COVID-19. I'm not going to lie, it has not been easy, for us or for our kids. Very soon in the process, through a survey of our families, we found the many challenges they were facing. The materials prepared by local school authorities presented several degrees of difficulty for many of our children, particularly when parents were not prepared to help them. Most of our families only had a cell phone, which could make access to virtual classes difficult, specially at homes with more than one child. As days kept passing by and families kept loosing income, food became scarce and hunger evident.

But there we were, every step of the way. In a couple of weeks, we developed a virtual resource center free of charge for all children and offered support to families through the phone, text messages or any way possible. Eventually, when restrictions started to be lifted, we adapted our daily hot meals program into a grab-and-go model. With all safety measures in place, families stopped by to pick up a four-portions hot meal. I'm including a link to the virtual resources and a picture of our indicators of impact.

The stories of how these actions have helped families are endless. With your donation, you have been an active contributor to the solutions. We cannot thank you enough.

Thank you!

Links:

Take a look at Educate at Home, our virtual resource center

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May 27, 2020
Thank you for your support!

By Astrid Guerra | Grants & Quality Assurance Leader

Greetings from Puerto Rico! It’s been along time since I've talked to you about numbers. This time, the numbers have a very special meaning. While we are all experiencing a different reality due to COVID19, for thousands of children in Puerto Rico the quarantine adds up to previous life-changing experiences. If we put together an average of 92 days of class lost after hurricane Maria in 2017, a couple of months of schools closed after the earthquakes in January 2020 and now the quarantine, there’s a whole generation of teens who don’t know what a normal high school is. Our hearts go to the kids starting their learning experience in kinder to third grade, where crucial skills like reading and comprehension are developed.

The good news is that the tireless leaders at Boys & Girls Clubs of Puerto Rico were very fast at finding solutions. Through phone calls, text messages, and other digital communications, they have been able to reach 3,965 Participants with activities to do at home as if they were at the clubs, and to assist with the modules assigned by the Puerto Rico Department of Education.

As children were mandated to stay home, parents became teachers. Many of our parents found several degrees of difficulty when helping their children with schoolwork. Therefore, in an unprecedented effort, our leaders designed a way to support, reaching 3,503 Parents.

All the learning resources developed at this time plus the virtual activities designed for the after-school program can be found at our website. I want to take this opportunity to invite you to stop by and take a look at the resources at bgcpr.org/educateencasa. They are free and children do not need to be club members to benefit from them.

I also want to thank all of you who contributed to the project on May 5th during #GivingTuesdayNow. Your contribution at this time is greatly appreciated.

I hope next time I write we are all healthy and standing strong!

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Jan 29, 2020
Greetings! from Boys & Girls Clubs of Puerto Rico

By Astrid Guerra | Grants & Quality Assurance Leader

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