There are 99 thousand children and young people between the ages of 12 and 21 who have been out of the school system for more than two years and until now in Chile and the only alternative available to them is adult education. Now with the bill that creates the new educational modality of school re-entry, the Ministry of Education hopes that all those who are excluded from the classrooms today, regain their right to education.
Visibly moved, the director of Fundación Súmate, Liliana Cortés, participated in the brief but symbolic ceremony in which the Minister of Education, Raúl Figueroa, announced the creation of a new educational modality of school re-entry and the sending of the bill to Congress for its financing.
“Today an important step is being taken, there is recognition of the work that many organisations have done over the years and, above all, it gives back to the children and young people we work with, their right to education. As a country we take care of the debt that we have with them since, through this modality, they will be able to recover their educational trajectories, project their future and understand that if they left the system today they have the possibility of returning without asking for favours or permits, but because it is their right, ”said Liliana Cortés regarding this initiative that the Ministry of Education and the National Council of Education had been working on since the end of 2018.
Minister Raúl Figueroa stressed the importance of creating for the first time a modality specially designed for children and young people excluded from the school system. “Until now, they only had the possibility of joining adult education if they wanted to finish their school career, so the needs of these students were neglected. This new modality takes care of this obstacle by generating its own spaces with pedagogical, socio-emotional and technical supports designed specifically for them ”, he explained.
Liliana Cortés added that this will be an improvement for the entire educational system, specifically because “these young people made invisible by our society can no longer wait, today we know that due to the effects of the pandemic many young people are also being left behind, therefore post pandemic to have the creation of the re-entry modality and this bill approved in terms of financing, will give real opportunities and possibilities for them to return, recover their educational trajectories and continue projecting their future ”.
Who will be able to access this new modality?
All boys, girls and adolescents between 12 and 21 years old who, having previously been enrolled in the Chilean school system, are today out of the school system for more than two years for various reasons associated with contexts of personal and family vulnerability and / or exclusion Social.
We hope this message finds you well and that you are handling these uncertain times as good as possible.
From Hogar de Cristo we wanted to let you know our current situation of our organization in Chile and how we have been carrying out our project focused on young students.
As you may already know, in Chile, more than 200,000 children and young people are outside the educational system. With the current health crisis this number will surely increase. Education became much more complex than usual. Many young people were already being excluded from the system but the pandemic has widened the educational, economic, and social gaps.
Face-to-face education in Chile is still not a reality due to the pandemic and in fact the country is in a new wave, with many communities in new quarantines.
Our students have needed more emotional support than ever. They have shown how much they miss the protective space of the school and we have responded with constant monitoring online, giving distance classes through our Virtual Learning Classrooms and creating new workshops to motivate them and continue teaching. We never lost contact with them. We made a diagnosis and found them with many uncertainties, anxiety and demotivation. There were many who said: "I'm locked up, they won't let me out." It happened that they began to miss the classroom, the school, the classmates, the teachers. Before the pandemic, everyone wanted to be out of school, they did not like the norms very much, the rules, but this crisis came to show that education, educational establishments, are a very important linking element in them. When one hears as a cliché that the school is the second family, it became real because that is where young people receive a lot of support; there were links that they began to miss.
In this time of pandemic, we discovered that we could not deliver certainty to young people or their families. We couldn't tell him this was going to end tomorrow, because no one knew anything anyway. And here we adopt a phrase: "The opposite of uncertainty is not certainty, but it is the community, it is living it together." That was a super important discovery because at the youth and team level we concluded by doing group activities that are not only to know how they are or what they need, but so that they could collaborate mutually, get to know each other and accompany each other. Young people have given us a lot and made us understand and learn about resilience. When everything seemed lost, with an uncertainty that at the beginning was very powerful and we figuring out what we could do from our computers, which seemed impossible, we began to see that we could overcome this uncertainty together. It was an invitation to be united, there was no reason to be alone.
Virtual Learning Classrooms and online workshops and are now a successful reality. Young people are super grateful, they perceive us as a recess from everything bad. For them it is a moment of relaxation, a space for personal and group care. We work with a wide variety of topics, topics that they themselves raised with their tutors that we later transformed into new workshops.
We have been able to achieve this transformation because of your support. Your contribution has meant being able to continue providing quality education to thousands of young people throughout the country. We really thank you from the bottom of our hearts for your help that is giving hope and a future to so many young people.
It has been a year that no one will easily forget. In March when the pandemic began, all the members of the education system - students, teachers and directors - thought that the emergency would last a couple of months. They never imagined that it would last the whole year.
However, Hogar de Cristo has adapted quickly to the new way of teaching and supporting people in need. We began a profound process of digital transformation with the objectives of reaching more young people with their educational paths interrupted, being more flexible in their accompaniment and providing them with a comprehensive education that includes the development of social-emotional and digital skills.
Liliana Cortés, director of Súmate, explains: “This project complements our service and gives the foundation an injection of energy to be able to reach more young people and in a better way. It is an opportunity that arises from the pandemic, the suspension of classes and the fact that we had no way to reach the students directly. In this search for alternatives we find the great opportunity offered by the digital world ”.
Súmate trusts in the high potential of these children and young people who have huge gaps in general and digital knowledge, but which with proper guidance are possible to overcome. “It is a huge challenge to reduce the digital divide in which the young people we work with and their families live. We do not want them to be left behind again in this development in which Chile is embarking. If we do not put a sense of urgency on this issue, we are going to generate inequality again in the world of education ”, added Liliana Cortés.
To this end, the goal was to enable virtual learning spaces that allow the accompaniment service to be taken to the next level. Currently, they have three projects under construction:
The challenges and opportunities involved in implementing these three paths requires, of course, funding, training in Teams for Education, preparing content for the application and for virtual classrooms and, in addition, seeking connectivity for young people.
Furthermore the methodology to to follow-up one by one with the students have being carried out via telephone, WhatsApp groups and video calls in case the students need some kind of containment.
Our priority was to make sure they have access to online classes. We have gone out the same to the field at least once a month, either to deliver merchandise or chips that would allow them to have internet on their cell phones to those who did not have.
It has been a huge effort by our tutors, teachers and students but the fruits are in sight and our commitment to not leave anyone behind is more valid than ever.
Greeting from Hogar de Cristo
In these times of COVID-19 emergency, we are facing unprecedented challenges in our daily activities. Our educational centers have closed following government measures but we have continued with our classes and workshops through distance education.
Without a doubt, having to work remotely has been a complex issue for many of us, especially for those who directly care for children and teenagers. Despite this situation, the professionals of our different programs and schools have managed to continue providing socio-educational and / or pedagogical support to the beneficiaries in this context of a pandemic.
Regarding new students, despite this emergency situation, we made the decision to start different projects online to maintain permanent contact with them in order to generate links and to develop a pedagogical and psychosocial diagnostic process. In this time of uncertainty, it is key to continue providing our services and to be as close as possible with our students in order to prevent drop outs.
For example, in one of our project for young people who have been out of the school system, Jara, a Technical Advisor in the Advisory area, points out that "it becomes clear how important it is to bond with young people and to introduce them to the people who are entering their lives, it is a fundamental step in the process". As a result of this, during the second week with suspension of classes, a team made up of two teachers, a social worker and the coordinator of the program decided to present themselves by video to the young people so that they could put a face and voice to the people who were working with them.
Furthermore, this year the experience with the families of young people has been different: "This year we met with families who are super interested in the process and in daily contact with the social worker. There has been a process of bonding with parents that is very strong."
We have also developed a platform for sharing videos, and workshops to continue education but also to become a meeting point for students and teachers.
We are committed to the education of Chilean youth and we will continue fighting so that no one is left behind. Your help has been essential to achieve this goal.
Greetings from Hogar de Cristo
Thanks to the strong support from you and other different donors, Hogar de Cristo is now part as a permanent online member of GlobalGiving and ready to support young Chilean teenagers. We will like to express our gratitude to you for making this happen.
With this campaign, we have raised so far $535 for supporting young chilenas by providing them comprehensive and quality music education and workshops in a safe environment. We have had 3 donors and we are working on increasing the scope of our campaign.
This project is part of our program “SUMATE” which we have been working for more than 25 years. Its objective is to ensure the educational trajectory of children and young people through programs of retention, re-entry, reintegration and projection of their studies, transforming their quality of life and social inclusion. We will have our disbursement from GlobalGiving soon and we are already working on the project by procuring the items needed for the music education of these teenagers. Some of the teenagers are already having support and sessions with our educators; during last month, we have implemented a summer school programme for more than 50 students, providing them with art, music, sport and juggle workshops.The program is one of the first experiences of open school that Súmate creates to provide entertainment and ensure food during the summer months to young people. Through playing and having fun, summer school workshops focus on transferring the values of fellowship, teamwork, perseverance and effort to young people
We will continue focusing our efforts on this an new campaigns that we will be launching soon. We will keep you posted with updates on the donation utilization and on this new campaigns.
Once again, we thank you for your generous support.
Daniela Tosti-Croce
Project Leader
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