Empower 4000 Venezuelan Children to Succeed!

Dear donors,

We are still suffering the ravages of the pandemic with schools closed, but that has not dampened our enthusiasm and effort to empower Venezuelan children to succeed in the town of Sabaneta, El Consejo, Aragua State, thanks to the generous support received last year.

During July and August, we successfully continued working remotely at the four selected schools: UEN Manuela Perdomo Almeida, UEP La Gracia de Dios, UEE Alfredo Almeida, and UEN Creación Calle Páez with students in Elementary and High School. In these schools, the training course for the teachers had been completed and the students' books had been delivered at the beginning of our campaign (See reports N°1 and N°2).

Once the textbooks were delivered, the work had to be carried out remotely, making the best use of the facilities that technology permits. During this time, always supported by our base team in Caracas and coordinated by the work team in Sabaneta, the teachers received weekly, in digital format through smartphones, the lessons and activities they had to do with their students.

It was not easy, because it was a total change in the way of communication between coordinators and teachers, but the enthusiasm shown by the teachers was positive and wonderful, so we can say that the experience was a success! The teachers felt motivated to learn about the new technology that opens up an infinite world to them and they were able to involve the parents, not only as supervisors but also as participants in the activities that their children were carrying out.

As we have already mentioned, all four schools are located in a low-income area, where the precarious conditions of education are most evident. This includes the low salaries received by teachers who, nevertheless, continue to fulfill their work educating students of all ages. For this reason, during these final months of the campaign, we continued to provide them with an economic incentive that helped them cover part of their personal needs.

It was not possible to fulfill the initial desire to offer both students and teachers a nutritious meal every day, in a joint effort with an international organization working with Venezuela, due to school closures. In Venezuela, many children do not go to school because they have not had breakfast, and if they do go to school, they often suffer from fainting due to malnutrition. Therefore, helping them with at least one nutritious meal a day was our dream because it would allow them to attend school in a better disposition.

Despite the difficulties due to the pandemic and the humanitarian crisis in Venezuela, we feel very satisfied with our work of teaching values and we will continue because we believe in the education of children and young people as the way out of poverty and give Venezuela hope for a prosperous future.

Return to classroom teaching has been announced, and in the next few days, we will be there, attending the schools we have been working with, and also bringing Alive to the World to as many children as we can, in new schools and with more trained teachers.

Thank you, thank you, and thank you for your continued and generous support for the education of children in Venezuela! We will always be grateful on behalf of our children and youth! We also reiterate our thanks to the GlobalGiving team for their particular attention to the problems in Venezuela, which continues to experience a deep humanitarian crisis, but always with the hope of a better future for all, and particularly for our young people!