Quality Education for Peace-building and Democracy

Project name: Quality Education for Peace-building and Democracy

Reporting Period: December, 2016 – February, 2017

Funds raised so far: $210 of $20,000

Dear Donor, 

Several actors of the Colombian civil society continue joining efforts to mobilize resources to build a culture of peace in the country, especially for the forthcoming Colombian post-conflict -in which many youths should be effectively incorporated to the society. Over the years, Fundación Escuela Nueva has been playing a key role to promote equal opportunities for the rural sector through quality education.

As you might recall, the overall goal of this project is to implement an effective bottom-up, dissemination strategy to strengthen child centered active, participatory and cooperative learning, as well as democratic attitudes and behaviors of children and the educational community in general to strengthen social fabric.

• This report describes the project’s key activities performed since late January, 2017 when the official school calendar started in Colombia.Despite the project has not been fully funded, Fundación Escuela Nueva provided a set of 65 books of children literature to the 5 schools targeted with the project. One fifth of the total books provided (325) were attributed to the $210 raised so far -in which your generous support made the difference. The remaining books were provided with the support of a US Foundation.

• The provision of a set of 65 books aims to promote research and exploration skills in the students. The books were carefully selected in accordance to the children’s needs. All of them help students to strengthen their cultural identity, perform scientific experiments, get familiar with foreign literary expressions through fascinating collections of myths and legends.  

• Testimonials from students will be gathered and shared with you in the second quarter of 2017. 

• Fundación Escuela Nueva continues mobilizing efforts to find matching funds with B-Corp companies and Foundations based in the United States. As a result of this, an e-commerce startup has pledged $15,000 that will enable us to move things forward before the end of the second quarter of 2017 to set up the corresponding workshops to strengthen reading and writing skills in the first grades, as well as to provide social studies learning guides. However, we still need funds to provide resources for the learning corners to bring alive the activities in the learning guides. One of our teachers, Mariana Padilla, from a rural school in the Colombia’s coffee region really needs a microscope to develop science experiments with students. Let’s join efforts to help Mariana and other teachers to improve their practices!  

Finally, we do want to express our most sincere gratitude for your contribution and commitment to our cause!