Upskill a Community to Fight Poverty in Costa Rica

Feliz Navidad y un muy Prospero Ano Nuevo!

Thank you for all your support in 2013, we've had a fantastic year thanks to your support. Through the funds raised through GlobalGiving, we were able to successfully start a major construction initiative with our partners at the El Cocal school!

This month we have seen a particular improvement in our English Teaching program at El Cocal Primary School. The students and teachers have been much more engaged in our classes and we have seen more children coming to the community centre to learn outside of their classes as well.

One of GVI’s main goals worldwide is to help improve and encourage education in places where it is less accessible or less encouraged. One of the eight UN Millennium Development Goals (MDG) deals directly with this issue, which is also linked to another MDG, that covering poverty. Many people in the world lack access to good education and it is this that holds them back when it comes to finding a better job later in life. In general, education in Costa Rica is good and well-funded, but this funding tends to be concentrated in certain geographical areas. El Cocal, the community in which GVI volunteers work, receives little funding and is quite resource-poor; this leads to difficulties for teachers and students alike. Partly due to this, but also because of other problems, students will often not go on to high school after leaving primary school. Many may be too busy helping at home or working elsewhere, some may just not be academically strong enough, and others might choose to continue their education later when they have more time, perhaps in evening classes. Given this knowledge, it is particularly important for the students to improve their access to better jobs whenever possible, and speaking English is one of the best ways they can improve their job prospects. Tourism is one of Quepos’ biggest industries and Costa Rica as a whole attracted 2 million foreign visitors in 2008. Many of these visitors come from English speaking countries, so being able to communicate with them is key, and opens a wealth of opportunities.

Our English Teaching volunteers have been working especially hard to integrate a new curriculum into the current classes. We have worked closely with the local teachers to find a system that works well for them and makes the best use of the volunteers and have also looked to make planning a little simpler for the volunteers. This makes it much easier for volunteers to focus on improving the knowledge of the students and increasing their vocabulary and confidence with the English language. Having this new system in place should make it easier for the local teachers to be involved with the classes and with planning as the whole progression from absolute basics upwards is mapped out and simplified.

We have also started to teach specific conversation classes with grade 6 students and this has shown a lot of growth. The students enjoy these types of classes a lot and really engage with them. The local teachers have also been very happy with the improvement and the interest of the students gives extra encouragement to the teachers.

One highlight of the last month was watching students playing a game during break time that they learned during an English class. The local teacher showed them this game as a way of teaching colours and shapes in English and they enjoyed it so much that they continued playing, in a mix of Spanish and English, for the next few days.

As ever we are incredibly grateful for your support.These achievements would not be possible without your involvement.

All the best

GVI Quepos

Links:

• http://www.gvi.org