Secondary Rural Education-742 youths in Nicaragua

In 2007, Fabretto implemented the Rural Secondary Program or Sistema de Aprendizaje Tutorial (SAT); a program designed to provide quality secondary education to rural populations who have little or no access to public secondary programs. The program emphasizes sustainable community development, entrepreneurship, and innovative agricultural practice and over the last six years, has effectively brought high school education to youth who otherwise had little chance to continue studying after the sixth grade.

This school year the SAT program enrolled 748 high school student beneficiaries. The program currently relies on 40 tutors (8 new hires this year) for the program.  Averaging 19 students per tutor makes each SAT classroom a very personalized and highly dynamic educational experience.

The SAT program is a two thronged approach catered towards rural secondary education, student SAT not only provides a secondary education, but also imparts the spirit of entrepreneurship, and works to transform students into agents of positive change within their community by applying the knowledge learned in class to real world experiences. This formula, Fabretto believes, provides a realistic skill set to young adolescents, which prepares them to become productive members of society.

During the 2013 school years the following activities took place:

-          18 students participated in workshop training sessions regarding development of business plans to promote small business entrepreneurship 

-          Fabretto organized 3 agriculture field workshops at the Cusmapa, Las Sabanas, and Somoto centers in the north on planting and maintenance of school gardens and nurseries. 

-          In Las Sabanas, the mayor agreed to donate high quality vegetable seeds so that the school garden and nursery program can increase their quality and production of crops. 

-          In San Isidro de Bolas, students developed 2 business plans under the guidance of tutors and Fabretto technical staff. One includes a bakery and the other a kiosk from where the student run agriculture cooperative can commercialize its products. 

-Students started 6 small business ventures in the production of coffee, honey and bakery among others.

 -57 students participated in 2 SAT cooperatives this year (one in San Isidro de Bolas and the other in San Jose de Cusmapa). Both cooperatives received early on several workshop training sessions on cooperative administration and management.

-315 SAT students –roughly 50%- participated in community well-being activities that include street clean ups, recycling and health campaigns, and community promotion events for reading initiatives towards primary students.

Fabretto believes that continued improvement of the SAT program requires continual investment in its tutors. Fabretto maintains a highly qualified staff of SAT tutors, who are proficient in teaching themes both inside the classroom at an academic level and outside the classroom at the practical level. To accomplish this SAT tutors are constantly receive reinforcement training to ensure optimal teaching effectiveness. In the first of half of the 2013 school year Fabretto has implemented 11 workshops sessions for tutors in science, math, and language. In addition to regular training sessions, Fabretto provides technical support to aid tutors in three areas: pedagogical approach, agricultural best practices,   and ESL teaching strategies. 

This year, 52 senior students are poised to graduate from the SAT rural high school program.  Fabretto is proud of these students and confident that the program will continue to produce graduates who feel empowered to take advantage of opportunities beyond the classroom.