No place I Would Rather Be

                                    

                                   

                       

                         

                           

                              

                            

                              

                         

                              

Some People Care

Making one connection in New York lead me to one great organization.  It was brought to my attention by the daughter of one amazing mother who have passion to make a difference in Honduran education. 


One day her lovely mother took a trip to Roatan over 20 years ago.  While on "vacation," she couldn't help, but notice the amount of children not in school. When she would search for reasoning, she did not receive sufficient answers.  After interviewing teachers, school officials, and talking with kids-she knew their educational system needed a serious wake up call.  She bought some land right on the beach in the main area of Roatan and opened up a library called, "Sandcastle Library."

"Brain Space" educates children in various settings i.e. their own library space, the bus mobile, and the school. It was created by her mother, Cat,  just ten years ago. Cat  is passionate about the community she is serving and wants to provide realistic learning opportunities for children.  She works against a poor education system with 80 percent of teachers having a 6th grade level of education or lower. Teachers are teaching math that they can barely comprehend themselves.To improve education for teachers, she is working on a teaching grant to give additional training to teachers on the island.  It's unfortunate that many classrooms are overfilled with 50 to sometimes 90 kids. 


History
This library grew overtime from having books, to building and learning about science, math, astronomy, and having tutors for various subjects. She believed in employing within and hired all local teachers, tutors, and staff from the island. She trained all of them herself and continuously contributes towards their educational growth. Many of the teachers of Roatan don't have anything past an eighth grade education, which can be challenging to teach everyone new information.  Not only is she an intelligent woman, she is a fun, kind, lovely spirit.  She makes the kids feel good, acknowledged, and cared about...and this means the world to them. 

Starting off as a library, it grew to two libraries along with the Book Mobile, which delivers English and Spanish books to children in the whole Rotan area. A staff member also reads English interactive classic books to full classes at different schools each week.  This may seem simple, but for an island like Rotan- this means the world to these children. These kids are ecstatic when they see the bus pull up and they are thrilled to see a familiar face greet them.  They build positive relationships with staff and they feel more comfortable learning and speaking English.
Their desire to read is boosted up a level as they are encouraged to participate. Thanks Mrs. Cat for your amazing dedication and commitment.  

     So this is PIER-Partners in Education Roatan

My Mayan Purpose

Within many organizations, I come in and they access what their current problems, the highest need, and how I can assist with my skills and experience.  With Mayan Families, I served as a Social Worker making home visits, working with the Elderly, and working in the Pre-school on behavioral problems.  

With all my volunteer projects, I am 100 percent aware of the disadvantages of working for an organization for a short period of time.  Many organizations require long term commitments because it is just better for the client and community in the long run.  I completely agree with this and did not want to disappoint clients or the organization.  I made a personal commitment to create something that would be permanently used in the organization and would be helpful to the kids and or teachers.  

In this case, I worked closely with one teacher on children's problematic behaviors and had them cooperating in a short time. Children respond to positive reinforcement and rewards therefore I practiced use of various rewards in the classroom. It was wonderful because I worked with such an amazing Guatemalan teacher. She was only 20, but presented as a 25 year old or older.  She was so wise, so mature, and clever.  She was completely cooperative with any changes I made in the classroom with seats, directions, rewards, praise, verbal and gestural prompts, etc.  Ms. Rosa and the assistant followed right along and this create a strong dynamic and a great improvement.

I worked on a 5 target kids, but really I worked with everyone to assess their level.  This happened last year where I had these amazing classroom dynamics and it was just like a power class and it was pure teamwork and respect.  It was wonderful to see such a warm acceptance to me and my input and suggestions. It turned out being effective for the student and helpful to the teacher.  

This mixed class of Preschool and the older 5-7 had the most behavioral problems of all the classes.  For this class and all 3 other classes, I created Behavioral Rewards charts, which I made through Excel so they can easily print them up each week. I also created a Behavioral Plan for all Pre-school teachers which would serve as a seminar for teachers in the upcoming future. 

 It was a great accomplishment for such short time and my lovely teacher commented on how she thinks I'm better than anyone there and I should stay there with them for the rest of summer.  The thought did cross my mind to stay for the rest of the summer as I loved it that much.  I loved the kids, the teachers, the parents.  My little munchkin who was the worst behaved stopped eating everything in sight, reduced his hitting, and was fun and lovable. 

 When you contribute positively to a human life, there is nothing more rewarding in this lifetime.