Bilingual School Archives - Page 3 of 12 - Shoulder to Shoulder, Inc.

February 20, 2021August 3, 2023

Interns from the Leadership Center

By Katherine, Dania, and Eva – Leadership Center Interns

Katherine, Dania, and Eva

Hello, we are Katherine, Dania and Eva. We graduated from The Leadership Center as bilingual in Leadership and Community Development. In our time there we learned that community development is about people, not projects. By thinking in a different way, we know we can help in our communities.When we learned about Shoulder to Shoulder’s mission and vision, we believed that by doing our internship with the organization we would receive new experiences and develop our knowledge on how to be a teacher and work with children.

Throughout the pandemic, the experience of teaching has been difficult and we have faced some challenges. Still, we consider and see that our classes have been active, regardless if they are virtual or in a classroom. The desire of the students and parents to learn, showed us that everything is possible in these difficult times, no matter the sacrifice. The support that each parent is giving to their children to be successful is one thing that surprised us because students’ education did not stop.

What we wanted was to give our students the opportunity to learn from us through encouragement, by listening to them, making them feel welcome and feel important to us. Also, by sharing our experiences that can help them in the future. Even though times are not easy, we have been motivating them to not give up!

We are thankful with God for the time we had to do our internship with Shoulder to Shoulder, for the opportunity they gave us to share and learn from them. To the teachers for supporting us. To the students for the beautiful times that we shared together, and to the parents for supporting their children. We advise future interns to do things with passion, love, encouragement and to believe in the organization. To put themselves in a child’s mind and enjoy the time while they are doing their internship. We believe Shoulder to Shoulder is a great organization to work with, providing opportunities to develop our communities and help the education.

March 12, 2020August 18, 2023

What a Beautiful Adventure it is

By Nely Vasquez – StS Educational Advancement Assistant

Nely with 1st Place Winner Lucy

What a beautiful adventure it is — to take a seat and enjoy a wonderful enchanted journey. It is a feeling that can’t be described, a world that only your imagination can give you. Through a book, you can get into any world you want. This happened with the children of our bilingual school in Camasca through a reading contest.Do not read by obligation, do it for fun, smile, live, love, enjoy it. Be aware! With every book you read, you are entering the mind of the person who wrote the book and wants to share their world with you. Begin to be like Lucy, a fifth-grade student in our bilingual school, who fell in love with reading and at the age of 11 years, has now read more than 50 books! – not common in a culture where reading is not a habit.

This project was the first of its kind and being in charge of it was a big challenge for me. It made me feel honored … I was trusted with the first annual Shoulder to Shoulder Reading Contest. We had to plan the project and decide on prizes. We decided to give a big prize to the student who had read the largest number of books.

At the very beginning of her adventure, Lucy’s goal was to win first place in the competition only because of what first place meant, but then it became a hobby and at the end of the contest she continued reading as she had been doing every day. What was really rewarded was her dedication and enthusiasm for reading. I don’t think that I will ever forget when Lucy told her teacher one day: “Miss Jessy, can you please call my dad? I need to tell him that I am staying after class to read.”

Although all the kids were wild about the reading contest, it seemed like it had the biggest impact in the fifth-grade classroom. Students there read as much as they could: they went to read at recess, at lunch, at all times, they even got to school early and stayed later than usual. One of them was Noé. Even though he did not read the most, all his reports demonstrated how much he dove into the books. I was always excited to see the proof that he actually understood and comprehended what he read – much like Nohely’s and Keylin’s reports.

Limits exist only in your mind; the best prize that reading can give you is knowledge. But keep in mind that it is not a book that gives it to you, but your desire and inclination towards reading. Whether you read due to obligation, fun, a challenge, a goal or just out of curiosity, it takes you to a wonderful place.

Fifth Grade Winner Nohely

March 20, 2019June 20, 2023

The Robots and Kids are INSIDE — Thanks to YOU!!

New Meeting Space is Complete!

Catholic Relief Services gave us a grant of $10,000 — to build a small kitchen and dining hall for our school. But, our vision was to have a large space — where the children could eat, but where we could also host Parents’ Meetings, school assemblies, and BUILD ROBOTS.

Thanks to YOUR DONATIONS, we were able to double the size of the space. We now have a beautiful Meeting Space.

I was in Honduras in January, and I saw the new building. I was very pleased. My eyes were drawn to a framed photo on the wall of Paul and me. I approached the photo, and was overwhelmed when the Parents’ Association told me that they had dedicate the space to the memory of my late husband, Paul. Wow, Paul would be so touched and proud.

We could not have built this beautiful space if not for the help of donors like YOU.

Now, we can build our Robots inside!

Laura Failla Manship
Executive Director
paulandlaura@shouldertoshoulder.org