What Happens at a Closed Learning Center? - Open Windows Foundation
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Newsletter Summer 2020
What Happens at a Closed Learning Center?
Not nothing.
While the
pandemic has
narrowed our
range of activities,
it has not stopped
them. The
teachers are
coming to the
learning center
three times a week, partly to keep the facility clean but also to loan some of the scholarship
students our laptops so they can do their homework more easily. They also prepare lessons
for the primary school children, but because not many families have been coming to pick up
the lessons for their children, the teachers are now trying a new method: video lessons the
children will be able to access on YouTube. Read the next article to find out more about our
effort to build another piece of Guatemala’s educational infrastructure.
Aunque el centro de aprendizaje está cerrado, los maestros vienen a Ventanas Abiertas tres
veces por semana. Limpian los salones y crean tareas para los niños y niñas. Pero sólo pocos
padres recogen las tareas y los niños y niñas pierden la oportunidad de conseguir una educación.
Por eso, los maestros han empezado a hacer videos con lecciones. Se puede leer más debajo.
A Different Kind of Infrastructure
It is not just the daily schedule of homework and lessons for the school children that has
been disrupted at Open Windows. Our community development projects have been
impacted, as well. Neither Open Windows nor our frequent partner, Developing World
Connections, can use volunteers at this time to build houses or install eco-stoves. That is
one more way in which we find ourselves unable to assist our community at the present time.
So, we are looking to the future. One of the large gaps in Guatemala’s infrastructure involves
distance learning. While in countries with greater resources much of the response to the
closure of schools has been to move instruction from physical to virtual classrooms, that has
been more difficult here. It is occurring at the junior high, high school and university levels,
but there is nothing similar for the primary school children who make up the majority of the
Open Windows clientele. The schools
are giving the children worksheets but
no instructions that would help them
complete them accurately. So, we
decided to do something about it.
Using the national curriculum as a
base, we have identified lessons we
want to provide in reading and
communication, mathematics, natural
science and social science. We will
post these on a new channel in
YouTube starting within a few weeks
and children will be able to access
them with their parents’ phones.
Beginning from zero is hard, so what
will be available initially will look a bit skimpy, but the teachers are working hard to cover as
much as they can while the schools remain closed. Simultaneously, we plan to seek funding
to increase the number of videos we can make using external help. Keep an eye on our
website for more developments.
Como el país está cerrado, voluntarios no pueden venir a Ventanas Abiertas. Por eso nuestro trabajo de
desarrollo comunitario se ha suspendido - temporalmente. Ahora los maestros están haciendo videos con
lecciones que pondrán en YouTube. Los niños podrán mirar los videos por los teléfonos de sus padres y
recoger tareas relacionadas con los videos para continuar recibiendo ayuda con su educación.
What Does a Pandemic Look Like in Guatemala?
Health Economics Education
500-1,000 new cases Restaurants, hotels and other Schools closed (including
identified per day businesses closed; employees learning centers like OW)
38,000+ known cases laid off Scarcity of resources for
(population: 17 million, so 2 of Borders closed and tourism online/distance learning
every 1,000 people) halted Students still paying full costs
1400+ deaths (4% of known Daily curfew for schooling
cases) Inter-departmental (interstate) No special classes, e.g., music
Hospitals at or above capacity travel prohibited and English
300,000 additional people in Children are missing the
extreme poverty afternoon nutrition OW gives
out daily
At the start of the pandemic, 19.8 percent white flags as a plea for help; workers in
of all Guatemalans lived not just in poverty, the informal economy, the majority
but in extreme poverty. Now, experts are throughout Latin America, have lost much
predicting that another 300,000 people will if not all of their income and those
fall to that level, bringing the extreme supplementing their below minimum wage
poverty rate up to nearly 21 percent. The jobs can no longer do so because of the
signs of that situation are everywhere. curfews. All of this means children are
Motorcyclists offer rides to nearby towns to going hungry. Without means to stop the
earn a little money; women and children spread of the virus other than social
stand on the side of the roads waving isolation, all the trends will get worse
How much did you save on that vacation
you didn’t take this year?
The irony is that the pandemic has very different financial impacts on some people. Pretty
much everyone who has adequate resources is spending less money than usual, simply
because there are fewer opportunities to spend. And, while many working people, especially
those in lower paid jobs, have lost their incomes, stock market investments continue to be
profitable.
To help those in and around San Miguel Dueñas who are most in need, we need an increase
in donations for three purposes.
Scholarships. Without volunteers, whose fees help support the learning center, we
get fewer donations; that means we can provide fewer scholarships. The scholarships
are used to pay for junior high and high school, which are not free in Guatemala, as
well as for university costs. In addition, the uncertainty about the economy has made
people generally less willing to donate. We can only avoid having some of our
scholarship students dropping out if we get more donations.
Food for the Children. When we are open to the children, we make sure that every
child attending gets a nutritious snack every day. Now that we are closed, the children
are missing their snacks and most of their families are having a harder time feeding
them. Keeping some sustenance available to be picked up each day would give us
the opportunity not only to feed them but also to alert them to the video lessons we are
creating and to give them worksheets related to those lessons. That is kind of a low-
tech approach, but it is what we can do if we have the resources.
Video Program. Finally, we need resources for the video program. We can do some
basic videos, but we can rely on existing resources only up to a point. Editing
software costs money and to make the number of videos we need, we will have to
have additional help and several licenses. And, because we are not experts in this,
we probably need some professional help, as well.
If you are saving money during the pandemic, even if unwillingly, you can make a difference
to children who are losing their educations and whose families have lost their incomes.
Thinking in biblical terms, the traditional tithe of 10 percent of what you have saved will make
an enormous difference for people who are faced with losing everything, and especially to
children who are losing their futures.
Here’s where your dollars would go.
Scholarships
Junior High School: $500 per year
High School: $800 per year
University: $1200 per year
Food for the Children
$65 for all children for an entire week
Video Program
Licenses: $25 per license
Professional Support: $25 per hour
Debido a las medidas para combatir el coronavirus, la pobreza en Guatemala está creciendo. Además,
donaciones faltan y sin más donaciones no podemos brindar tantas becas. Necesitamos donaciones para
becas, comida para los niños y los videos. ¿Puede usted dar diez por ciento de lo que ahorró durante la
pandemia para salvar la educación de un niño o una niña?
Want to save a child’s education? Want to know more about Open
Send a tax-deductible check to: Windows Learning Center?
Open Windows Foundation Contact:
c/o John Davis Nilda Girón, Director
1268 E. McNair Dr. openwindows.nildag@gmail.com
Tempe, AZ 85283 (502) 7834 0292
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