The Edge, is what La Orilla translates to, it is a very small village in Magdalena right at the border with our neighbor country El Salvador. Let me tell you; its name makes real sense, when visiting that small village you can literally have one foot in El Salvador and the other one in Honduras.
The line that divides both countries is a small creek and even half of the creek is Honduran and the other one from El Salvador. Although the village belongs to Honduras we have to walk through a neighborhood in El Salvador, to reach it. It is not an official border but there’s policemen guarding it so we had to see him before passing by the neighborhood.
On our first visit, we had the opportunity to watch the students using the tablets with kolibri. I was surprised little kids from a very rural community were able to use a tablet, but realized they take technology easier than us adults. As we were there observing, some students reached out to tell us they were very glad they had the opportunity to be using tablets, they were content with all the books they could read, and they told us the title and summaries of some of the books they were reading.
This year as we got back in touch with the school we found out the school has more students enrolled than they did last year, and fortunately we had equipment to complete all their matricula with devices. And as the school succeeds they also face multiple challenges one of those is having few access to electricity, the installation of it had been in early 2021, and due to the difficulties the whole system presents, it was not working by september when we visited the school, to take advantage of the technology they had received, teacher Lidio would send students home with assignments that needed to be solved with the resources the tablet contains. Students would charge the tablet at home and take it back to school next day to be able to use it.
As of now the electricity system has been fixed and students are using the tablets in individual mode at the school, and what makes it easier to use the tablets at school is that they now have electricity and also that students are attending school Monday through Friday.
Teacher Lidio expresses being thankful for the opportunity of benefiting his students and his school with the technological devices. This is a one teacher school for all six grades of elementary, and 22 students. Although it is a very small school you can see through their eyes the desire to succeed. Every time the school has any difficulties with the technological devices, teacher Lidio reaches out to us, until his doubts are cleared up, and he is able to solve for his beloved students. We are thankful to professor Lidio for the dedication he puts into his work.
Success stories are the evidence that success is only achieved with hard work and dedication!
