Alive to the World, a proven values-based character formation program, has been effective teaching integrity and reducing pregnancy and violence in Venezuelan schools. Currently, with the pandemic our lessons must be remote, and our teachers and students in Sabaneta, a poor and violent neighborhood in Aragua, need improved connectivity. With your help and monthly support, we will now equip them with digital devices and mobile data plans to continue receiving training in values and life skills.
In Sabaneta, a very poor and violent community in Aragua, 1,450 children and teens are studying AtW this year. Next September another 900 will be added. But they lack connectivity. The present confinement represents a setback for these innocent students, so vulnerable to the vicious cycle of poverty and negative patterns of crime and insecurity surrounding them. However, we can continue their values education remotely, showing them a life plan and a better future is possible and achievable.
Assisting teachers and students with reliable digital devices and connectivity allows them to continue weekly AtW lessons remotely, with no interruptions. The Venezuelan Department of Education now requires 'Orientation and Community' classes in all schools, and AtW is the only fully structured K-12 program available, yet unsubsidized. We assist teachers with motivational and training workshops, provide all educational materials, teacher guides as well as yearlong support pedagogical support.
Our structured K-12 curriculum will enable families in this impoverished community, emblematic of social problems, to understand that violence and poverty can be overcome thru values education. Providing connectivity for continuous character formation and life skills will allow these 2,350 students to understand democratic values, community participation and be better citizens. They will receive vital tools for a positive future in a young country desperate for nationally replicable solutions.
This project has provided additional documentation in a PDF file (projdoc.pdf).
