Education Archives - Page 17 of 30 - Shoulder to Shoulder, Inc.

February 23, 2019June 16, 2023

Year in Review — 2018

In memory of Paul Manship

FINANCES

We ended 2018 on a solid financial basis. All Programs were fully funded by donations. Program budgets have been submitted for 2019. We will need to continue a rigorous fundraising program in 2019, to full fund all of the programs.

Donations by Category:

	2015	2016	2017	2018
Dental	33,539	19188	17,370	18,980
Scholarships	36,813	36,215	66,995	25,013
Nutrition	0	0	38,409	50,130
Bilingual School	15,067	26,871	17,135	19,425
Bilingual School Construction	0	21,039	21,250	4,775
Virtual Fiesta	21,142	9675	0	0
CREE (Tech & Robotics)	0	0	20,171	19,525
Undesignated Funds	43,512	52692	70,649	31,055
	150,073	165,680	251,979	168,903

BRIGADES

In 2018, we hosted 13 Brigade groups, for a total of 137 travelers. Groups were affiliated with the following organizations:

Brown University

Wingate University

Mountain Area Health Education Center (MAHEC)

University of Maine

Virginia Commonwealth University

Ohio State University

Duke University

University of Chicago

Genessee Valley Presybyterian

Unidad Hospitaleria Movil Latino America (UMHLA)

BILINGUAL SCHOOL

We finished the 2018 school year on Nov 30^th. It was a very successful year. We had 135 students enrolled – from Kindergarten to 5^th grade. In the next school year (2019), we will have 155 students, in grades Kindergarten to 6^th grade. We have finally, after 7 years, arrived at full capacity at the school. That is really exciting!

Thanks to the generous $10,000 donation from Catholic Relief Services, and the addition of $10,000 from StS generous donors, we built our last building on the campus – a combined kitchen, dining hall, and meeting space. It is beautiful!

ROBOTICS

Thanks to the donation of Alan Ostrow’s time, the Hondurans robotics team competed in in Mexico City. The team was coached again by Daniel Marquez (high school math teacher) and Henglyns Lemus (High School Informatics teacher). We came in 16^th place, and received a Silver medal for design. StS invested $15,000 to support this team, and send them to Mexico City. It is expected that the 2019 competition will be in Canada. We have not yet decided if we will have the funds available to send a team to the international competition.

However, the excitement from the International Robotics competition has led to the creation of local Legos Robotics teams. We are supporting the startup of robotics clubs in Santa Lucia and Concepcion. There are Legos teams in Honduras that compete in-country, and we are hoping that some of the teams from the Frontera will be able to participate in those competitions. In late November, we held a local robotics competition, in which 6 teams participated.

TECHNOLOGY IN THE SCHOOLS

The overall program (CREE) to provide technology based curriculum support is currently reaching 2300 children, used by 31 teachers in 12 schools. By end of the 2019 school year, the plan is to cover 3750 children, and 68 teachers in 23 schools. We utilize the Khan Academy in a local delivery vehicle called KA lite by LearningEquality.org. We won a $15,000 grant from Learning Equality. This, coupled with a donation of 25 laptop computers, will support our expansion into seven middle schools and seven elementary schools.

In addition to our work directly in the schools, we supported the Math Olympics with tablets loaded with Khan Math lessons. This year’s national finals were in La Esperanza. The students from Intibucá did very well.

NUTRITION (Mani)

We are providing micronutrient supplements to 2800 children in 3 municipalities. The annual budget for this program is $100,000. In June, the Mathile Foundation awarded us a grant of $50,000 to continue the program from September 2018 through August 2019. We need to raise the remaining funds. With the recent donation of $12,000 from Tim Gunderman, our goal is to expand the end date of the program to the end of 2019. We are currently about $20,000 short of that goal.

SCHOLARSHIPS —for High School Students (and a few University students)

Fidelina Gehner has created a very stable and self-sustaining program (successful due to her hard work on continually fund-raising for this program!). The annual budget for this program is $50,000.

In 2018, the scholarships were distributed as follows:

San Antonio: $3,500 (20 students)
Camasca: $4,500 (50 students)
Concepcion: $4,200 (23 students)
Santa Lucia: $3,500 (20 students)
Magdalena: $3,500 (20 students)
University students: $23,500 (donor designated funds for 8 students)

DENTAL

Drs. Larry and Jan Tepe have completed the transition of the StS Dental practices into two private practice dental centers. Both dentists are seeing more patients that ever, making more money than their previous salaries. Idalia Ramos has private dental practice, drawing patients from La Esperanza. Dr. Floricia (Flor) Amaya attends the University in Tegucigalpa during the week; she sees patients from Friday through Monday, and is fully scheduled.

The Tepes have continued to raise funds, to support StS’s dental services in the Frontera.

STAFFING

Paul Manship: Executive Director. Passed away in March 2018.
Laura Manship: Executive Director. Working from MA, with trips to Honduras 3 times/year.
Mariela Rodriguez: Assistant Director. Living in Honduras. Contract July 2018 – June 2020.
Edel Andino: Technology Coordinator. Contract June 2018 through May 2020.
Damaris Quintero: Scholarship Coordinator. Full time employee since June 2015.
Gisela Ramos and Sandra Diaz: MANI Coordinators. Full time employees since June 2016.
Gustavo Meza: Brigade Coordinator. Full time employee since August 2017.
Iris Giron: Community Development Coordinator (funded by VCU and Brown Universities). Full time employee since September 2017.
Nely Vasquez: Recent graduate from the Leadership Center, working as a teacher’s aide in the Bilingual School. Full time employee, started September 2018.
Iris Villanueva: Position is “Promotion and Community Relations” for the Bilingual School. She is charged with finding students to enroll, especially from other municipalities, and providing mentoring to the Director and Teachers at the school.
Volunteers for 2019: Grace Twohig, Maddie McKenna; Asa Kaylor; Henry Lathrop; Antonio Peraza; Elizabeth Morris.

Report prepared by: Laura Failla Manship, LICSW, MBA,

Executive Director

paulandlaura@shouldertoshoulder.org

413.275.4587;

+504.9829.0262

January 21, 2019August 4, 2023

When Children Are Engaged, Children Prosper

By Mariela Rodriguez – Assistant Director

Teachers from many kindergartens gather together

We called it the “Kindergarten project.” In early 2018, as a new school year was beginning in Honduras, a parent approached to say that their child’s kindergarten teacher was interested in being part of our computer-assisted learning initiative. At the time, our education programs focused on grades 1-9. Nonetheless, we decided to meet with the teachers. At the end of the meeting, our team offered to help fund, along with their parent association, half a television set to project English learning programs to an entire classroom of children. Our vision was for the kindergarten to pay us back and offer half-funding to another school in the future.

In September, we visited and checked-in on the project and were amazed at how the kids interacted with the program through the television screen — singing songs in both English and Spanish and learning to pronounce the sound of the English letters (see video).

In exchange for the assistance they received from Shoulder to Shoulder, we asked them to host a meeting with kindergarten teachers from other local towns to share their advances in the project. In mid-November when the meeting took place, teachers from 5 different kindergartens – representing 4 towns were present. The meeting was a success, and a number of teachers expressed interest in joining next school year!

We as an organization are very thankful and impressed with the success of our Kindergarten project and seeing the enthusiasm and gratefulness amongst the parents and the teachers causes us to also be excited to expand next year.

We saw that empowering community members was fruitful for both parties.

We’ve seen that finding community motivation, support and initiative is like hitting the jackpot.

Watch video: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-dlFUJ7CS3TOxPU_EEEZtg7coMrvrg4Z/view

October 29, 2018August 4, 2023

Teachers from 23 Schools Gather for Technology Training

By Grace Twohig – Education Mission Assistant

80 Teachers, from 23 schools, attend Training

On August 30th, we held a training session on Educational Technology. In attendance were 80 teachers, from 23 schools, in 7 towns. Nine (9) of the schools were new to using the KA Lite technology. We trained on the transition from KA Lite to Kolibri. Eight (8) schools were sent off with new equipment to start teaching in “presentation mode.”For myself, it was a special meeting to have all of the teachers we have been working with over the last year and a half together in one room. I believe we work with the absolute best from each school. These teachers inspire us at Shoulder to Shoulder, and without their dedication to the kids’ education, this project would not be successful.

In September, we were lucky to have Dr. Dick Buten and Laura Manship come to Camasca for a week and a half. These two are treasured not only by us, but everyone in the Frontera. All year we hear “When is Dick coming?” “When is Laura coming?” We had another successful and productive week by their sides – visiting schools, talking with teachers and leaders, planning for the future, and deploying some extra equipment. Highlights from the trip include:

** Talking with leaders in Concepcion and San Antonio about community proposals to expand the educational projects to their WHOLE municipalities;

** Working with the Regional Education Department to get all of the Honduran curriculum in digital form, and

** Encouraging the expansion of the robotics programs. In November, we are going to have a robotics competition between Concepcion, Camasca and Santa Lucia!

StS Volunteers — Sandy (left); Grace (right)