By Richard E Buten – President, Board of Directors
The United States Embassy in Honduras and Shoulder to Shoulder, Inc., work with the Honduran Ministry of Education to bring digital learning to rural HondurasThe U.S. Embassy Honduras, Public Affairs Section provided $110,000 in funding to Shoulder to Shoulder, for the development and distribution of digital curriculum via the Kolibri platform to more than 1250 children. This work supports the official Honduran textbooks and is being closely coordinated with the Honduran Ministry of Education who is assisting in the implementation.
This effort enhances educational opportunities of vulnerable youth in areas with low Internet connectivity. This project brings digital textbooks, video lessons, and a library of digital library books right into student homes via the Kolibri Learning Platform. With this, they can continue to learn during times when schools are closed due to COVID-19. The U.S. Embassy has provided funding for the transcription of Honduran textbooks onto inexpensive Android tablets and their deployment to students in 30 public schools in Southern Honduras.
Kolibri is developed and maintained by Learning Equality. It delivers a growing library of open educational resources designed for offline teaching and learning via open source software. The software and content are entirely free. It is centered around a learning platform with built-in educator support that can run on a local server device, e.g. laptop. It is complemented by tools to organize these resources and others to the local curriculum. In Honduras, Shoulder to Shoulder has implemented the complete set of textbooks needed for K-12 education plus a digital library of over 1000 books organized by grade level.