I want to spend some time to talk about the school (Comunidad Educativa Para la Vida), as much of our early time in Chilimara for us was spent at the school observing and working with the children at the school. The school in Chilimarca is the only one in the town that provides schooling all day. Schooling can be hard to come by for the impoverished Quechua children, and one could say they government has no problem with this. To give some background, the indigenous Quechua are generally seen as the working class of Bolivia. They seemingly have no real place in the city, and their purpose is to work in the farmlands and any other more menial jobs, according to those in power. I doubt these sentiments would be expressed verbally, but the underlying tones of the country seem to represent this line of thought. Since formal education is not needed for these positions, there is no pressure on the government side to provide more adequate education. This is how at least I understand it.
This is why this school is so important. It goes up to 6th grade and has nearly 200 children if you include the pre-K and daycare children. The children come from Chilimarca and the surrounding communities.
What is unique about this school lies in its teaching techniques and philosophy. Teaching responsibility to their students is incredibly important. The students are taught to those younger than them (not only the older 5th and 6th graders, I’ve seen 2nd graders helping with the kindergartners). All the students at some point in their stay here learn about gardening and farming through working in their large garden. They are also given other responsibilities each given day. The intention behind this is to give the youth a sense of purpose from a very young age. Teaching formal education like reading, writing, and math here is important and has its place here, but teaching practical living is just as important: how to be sustainable in your community, to be responsible, techniques to be healthy in living situations that can be challenging to do so. Here the children not only gain an education, they learn how to live better and smarter amidst their community. They are taught the importance of using their beautiful brain God has given them by being creative and learning to use what was once useless objects like trash (newspapers, bottles, etc) and turning them into things used in the home (bowls, decoration, etc) Much of the practical learning is hands on, the teachers are not simply teaching the children, but interacting and working with them.
This ties in with the schools philosophy that children are the most important part of a healthy community. Communities without education will continue to fall into the cracks of a society that marginalizes those who are thought of as having no power. The power to change, to be healthy, to fight through violence and oppression, to be sustainable agriculturally and economically, all stem from ones education. Therefore, education creates power against marginalization better than anything else. While MAP International as a whole desires to focus on maintaining healthy communities through health clinics and promoters into the community, MAP Bolivia hopes to show the rest of the organization that health clinics, while necessary, are not fully adequate for a communities health. They desire to show that the heath of a community must start at educating children. This is one of the reasons why we are here. We hope to write out documents for MAP Bolivia to MAP International explaining the importance of the current funding and future funding of this school.
Even though this post does not show it, this school is not perfect. It has its flaws like any other. But with this post we want to show that this school is necessary for this community, why it is necessary, and why it is important for us to be here and express its necessity.
We will write more about our first 1 1/2 weeks soon :)
Peace, Daniel
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