Tarea #3 (entrevistas/interviews)

Colin Yarnell

4/10/11

Resumen de Entrevistas

Acá en Cañitas, yo trabajo con dos organizaciones. Principalmente, enseño inglés a estudiantes desde el primero grado al sexto grado. Voy a la escuela cada día escolar y he conocido la escuela bastante por este trabajo. La otra organización que estoy ayudando es La Asociación de Desarrollo Integral de Los Turnos, Caebadilla, Cañitas, y La Cruz (ADI). Con este grupo, solo he asistido una reunión y he comunicado con el tesorero y la secretaria. Mi familia tiene conexiones con los dos grupos porque el presidente de la junta escolar es un hijo de mi padre Tico, y el tesorero de ADI es un hermano de él. Yo hice unas entrevistas con ellos y también con el padre de un estudiante de la escuela quien es un miembro de la escuela escolar. Yo les pregunte sobre varios cosas, y no habían exactamente cinco preguntas especificas que use para cada entrevista; pero, al mismo tiempo, pienso que por lo menos hay algún numero de temas en común a través de las tres conversaciones. Esta composición es para comentar en algunas de esas temas.
En mis conversaciones sobre la escuela, los problemas fueron definido como un déficit de dinero. Los dos hombres conectados con la escuela me dijeron que, aunque la escuela es publica, el presupuesto que el gobierno da realmente no es suficiente para provenir la calidad de educación que ellos quieren. Con resultado de esto, los padres tienen que pagar un parte del costo de cosas básicas, como la electricidad. Cuando cambiaron el piso de uno de cemento y acre a uno de cerámica, el gobierno pago para las materiales, pero los padres tuvieron que instilarlas en el piso. A veces ellos también reciben ayuda de voluntarios que donar su tiempo y/o su dinero. Pero me perece que, tal vez para cada proyecto que sirve la escuela, algunos padres necesitan pagar alguna cantidad de dinero o tiempo – la ayuda del gobierno jamás es suficiente. También, aunque el apoye que reciben de los voluntarios a veces les da mucho, no es una fuente de ayuda constante. Sobre maneras en que la comunidad podría mejorar la situación, el presidente de la junta me dijo que ellos pueden hacer una fiesta para recolectar fondos para la escuela, pero no hay mucho confianza en la posibilidad de convencer al gobierno altar el presupuesto para la escuela.
En hablar con el tesorero de ADI, otra vez escuché sobre un problema definido como un déficit de dinero, pero también de voluntarios. Ellos han tenido voluntarios de por lo menos cinco diferentes organizaciones, incluyendo ICADS. Él me dijo que seria mejor si había una fuete de voluntarios mas constante, y si tendrían una alianza con un colegio o universidad estadounidense o canadiense. También a él le gustaría si la comunidad tuviera mas agricultura orgánica, porque es bueno para la tierra, y también quizás atraería extranjeros que quieren aprender sobre esta forma de agricultura. Cuando yo le pregunte sobre recolectar donaciones, me sorprendí que él me dijo que preferiría tener donaciones con instrucciones especificas de cómo deben usarlas. En opinión, ellos deben tener la autonomía por lo menos para decidir que son las opciones de donde puede ir la plata. Me dijo que si ellos recibirían plata sin direcciones, ellos les preguntarían, ‘a dónde va?’.

Teaching Update, or, Insist on Language over English

It has been brought to my attention that I really haven't spent much time sharing about my experiences teaching. For the past month I've been teaching English at a small elementary school in my neighborhood called Escuela Canitas. The school only has two classrooms to serve for grades "kinder" through 6th. There are about 23 students in grades 1-6 and I think the kindergarten group is around the same size. The school building also has another, equal-sized room for a cafeteria. The faculty/staff consists of one lunch lady (forgive me if that term isn't PC), one kindergarten teacher, and me and a long-term substitute teacher for the older students (the teacher who normally would be there is having some health issues). Each weekday morning, I walk about fifteen minutes to the school and arrive around 9:30 am. After arriving, I usually wait a little while before beginning to teach the class of students grade 1-3. After that class ends for their lunch, I eat with the kids and then return for the 4-6 class. While each class is a manageable size, the real challenge is teaching a class to students from very different stages in their development; while there is one girl in the morning class who has learned to read and previously learned quite a bit of English, all the others in this group are basically starting from scratch with learning a second language, and the youngest haven't even mastered reading. Again in the older group there is one girl who knows a lot of English (in her case from living in the United States for an extended period of time) and all of her peers are far, far behind her level. With this group, I have gone from thinking that I could get them writing short passages in English - which I would then try to publish in a short book - to deciding that I should instead teach them the grammar of their own language as a way of preparing them to more easily learn any number of languages later. If these students later attend the local high school, they will likely have another opportunity to learn English, and I think it would be a better use of my brief time here to lay down a strong foundation for general language learning than to insist that these kids memorize a list of common words and phrases.

I think Ms. Ryan would support my decision. Would you?

A potential solution, compliments of my brother

In response to my last post, by older brother, Thomas, sent me a link to a different website that looks as though it could work perfectly for what the organizations I'm working with want: more donations, more volunteers.

Here's the link: www.universalgiving.org

I just sent them an email to see if they would actually partner with the association of development organizations here, and am hoping for a positive reply message. If you're the superstitious type, keep your fingers crossed.

A road block

I have recently come upon a road block preventing me from raising money for the local school. The school - or at least the parent organization they call La Junta Escolar - has a bank account. I assumed that it would be possible to utilize PayPal's service for donations so that people could easily and securely donate money directly to the account. I contacted the U.S. company to ask them if they would apply the reduced rate they apply for 501(c) organizations to the school, and also if they would change their pages about donations so that they could appear in Spanish like some of their other pages can. This is the response I got:

Dear Colin Yarnell,

We appreciate your interest in PayPal. However, due to legal and
regulatory constraints, PayPal is unable to process payments for or on
behalf of Charities, Political Party/Organization Donations, Non-Profit
Organizations (NPOs), Religious Institutions, etc in countries under the
PayPal Private Limited jurisdiction. You may refer to the PayPal Private
Limited User Agreement link
(https://www.paypal.com/sg/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=p/gen/ua/ua-outside) to
review the list of countries under its jurisdiction.

If you are affiliated with a subordinate charitable organization in the
U.S. that you would like to collect funds on your behalf, that
organization may be eligible to open up a PayPal account.


So I'm probably going to need to find another way to make it possible for people to donate money to them. If you know of a company similar to PayPal that would allow this, please let me know!

The people have spoken, and they want computers

Today I attended a meeting of La Asociación de Desarrollo Integral de LosTornos, Cebadilla, La Cruz y Cañitas. The meeting was the first of theirs that I have attended and took place in a small building called La Casa Club - now one of my favorite things to say in Spanish, as ¨club¨ is pronounced more like ¨cloob¨. Including myself, there were seven people at the meeting - four men, two women, and one cute jovencita. While the young girl sat apart from the group, sipping what I imagined might be juice or milk, probably bored out of her mind, the rest of us listened to the secretary read aloud the day´s agenda along with several pages of notes dealing with other current matters. When a break came, I introduced myself and told them a bit about what I had discussed with their treasurer in an interview with him about a weak earlier. They seemed excited about the possiblity of having a website for their organization, but this excitement was dampened by the fact that they have limited access to internet, and not many computers - while the secretary has a computer with internet access, the organization as a whole does not. They iterated this to me and also told me, as their treasurer had earlier, that they would greatly appreciate receiving donations of gently used computers and instruction on how to use them from volunteers. While I am here, I can at least teach some people basic computer skills (or computación, as they call it) to some people, who hopefully would be able to retain that information long enough to pass it on to others. Of course, because I will only be here for about another month, I won´t be able to teach many people. I do think, though, that I could probably arrange for computers to be donated at least to the schools in the area with your help and/or with that of organizations such as One Laptop per Child.

Do you know of a way to make this happen?

Are there organizations that make it easier for people to afford internet access?

¿Qué?

Though I dont particularly feel I have much to say at this moment, this blog looks terrible without a single thing written on the home page, and some of you may be wondering what exactly I'm doing in this place called Cañitas (besides "teaching, learning, and living"). I'm currently studying abroad through an institute called ICADS. I spent about a month studying español and "development" near San José, traveled through Nicaragua for a week, and now have an internship in the small pueblo of Cañitas - located about a ten minute bus ride from Monteverde, Costa Rica. I created this blog to share a bit of my experience with people like you, and also to receive feedback to help me make the most of this opportunity. So 'have a gander', as they say (or perhaps don't say) and let me know what you think!