Magical Classroom

Hey everyone! As we celebrate the conclusion of another school year here in Guatemala and inch closer to wrapping up 2015, we here at Magic Classroom decided to take a look back on some of the big-picture strides we’ve made as a program in the past year to motivate us as we set out to improve for 2016.

Here are some of the highlights!

• Improvement and Expansion: Once on the verge of shutting down operations,we have brought our program’s work to new communities while strengthening our existing classrooms by continually improving upon and expanding our curriculum and accompaniment model. After a lot of deliberation and trial by fire we have settled on a program model dependent upon partnership and cooperation, innovation and constant self-improvement. Thanks to a new partnership (more on that soon!), we will also be rolling out an enhanced curriculum in time for the 2016 school year.

• Partnership and Spreading the Word: Once an almost completely unheard of initiative operating in relative isolation from other organizations and educational actors, Magic Classroom has since formed partnerships with more than five different community organizations (in addition to countless other informal partners and associates) and has been to invited to participate in various educational events conducted by the Guatemalan Ministry of Education, USAID, and local universities. In an effort to both improve our own practices and contribute to the betterment of other education programs, we have also sought out relationships with academic institutions and scholars both domestic and international.

• Sustainability and Impact: After once having zero sources of outside funding, we now are blessed to have multiple potentially renewable partnerships that have us primed to double our current coverage in time for the upcoming school year. In just a few weeks, we will be celebrating the conclusion of a successful year of classes and begin tallying the results from our first ever year-end evaluation on program impact.

As you can see, we’ve got some nice momentum going and are in a much better position to thrive and expand than when the calendar last flipped over. Next week we’ll be spending an extensive amount of time visiting each and every one of our magical classrooms to get a better idea of the type of impact we’re having in our communities so be sure to expect some photos and stories from the field!

Thank you to all of those that have given and helped support our programs this year and those that have committed to helping us continue our work moving into 2016. Magic Classroom would like to give special thanks to Miracles in Action and the Tillotson Fund for their generous support in helping us reach new heights as an organization.

¡Hasta pronto!

Michael Estill

Program Director