Highlights of the last months

The last 3 months have been wildly exciting and busy for our Education & Child Protection team.  Here are a few highlights:

~ We received a generous donation of 25 XO laptops from the organization One Laptop Per Child.  In addition, we have partnered with Waveplace to be trained in how to most effectively use the laptops with children.  These little machines are quite phenomenal with cameras, internet, games and more.  Yet the real jewel in all of this is that laptops are cool, especially these funky green and white alien-looking ones!  Children naturally want to play with them, and they learn so much in the process.  Six members of the AMURT staff were trained by Waveplace to use the laptops and create curriculum.  Currently 20 children are engaged in our pilot 8-week course. They have created digital stories, some even are animated!  Below, Jakline and Francesca learn to maneuver a mouse for the first time.

~ Women of all ages (18-83!) have been raving about their support groups where they sing, dance, share, (and I bet, gossip too).  They also love the chance to make beads, learn papier mache, teach each other new recipes, receive health advice, and improve their literacy.  The women's program has really soared due to the energy and dedication of our phenomenal community organizers.  They facilitate daily circles to share fundamental organizing techniques and leadership skills.

~ The kindergarten program is showing marked improvements.   Teachers are learning how to create centers for children to choose activities.  They are painting, playing with blocks and puzzles, singing and dancing.  Our trainers go around to the 5 sites to coach the teachers in child-centered methods.  

~The Youth Leadership team just finished a two week course in participative video with a group called Global Eyes TV.  Twenty teens formed small groups and learned how to tell a story on film.  Some chose to document their daily lives, a few created public service announcements, and others tried their hand at romantic soap opera-esque dramas.   The videos can be viewed on the website: http://reset.to/global-eyes-tv  The youth leadership course is finding ways to continue these types of film projects with the teens, so that more of their voices are heard and stories are told!

~ Our primary school teachers were trained in the Gattegno Method of using little, colorful wooden rods to learn math and literacy.  Totally unconventional and experiential, the method is perfect for children and the teachers had a lot of fun too.  

~ We just started a new program called CIRCLES with the support of child psychologists from an organization called Artisans for Haiti out of Oregon.  We have a group of 10 women and 20 teen volunteers who are learning practical psychosocial skills to work with young children who have experienced trauma.  A CIRCLES group will consist of 1 woman and 2 teen facilitators with 10 child participants.  Along with the children benefiting from a year of small group play therapy, the facilitators will be coached and supported for the next year as this program evolves.

~Spring has sprung, and it is hot here!  The city sometimes feels scorchingly hot and dusty, but in the site at camp Seneas, Wilky the agronomist, has launched the beginnings of a urban permaculture paradise.  He has recycled tires to become beds for all types plants in the garden.  Every day, he spends time with the children, teens and women to nurture the garden and teach the invaluable skills of gardening and environmental protection.