The key to long-term sustainability is working shoulder-to-shoulder with our communities. Our collaborations are strategic and in place to ensure the success of our programs. While these change and develop over the years, below are a few.
Ministry of Education
As a natural support for our education programs, our team constantly seeks updated collaborations with the Honduras Ministry of Education (MOE). Changes in personnel happens often, yet we continue ensuring that Kolibri updates are made aware to the correct leaders.
Support is present at all levels of the MOE.
- At a national level this allows us access to updated digital textbooks & content for us to add to the Honduran Education Kolibri channel.
- At the regional level it allows us to train regional professional development staff on the Kolibri platform, which was especially needed during our grant with the Inter-American Development Bank.
- At the department and municipal level, we collaborate to deploy, monitor and aid Kolibri adoption. We also partner to spread literacy through our reading program.
Mayors
As our programs grew in the region, we were asked by local government heads to expand. While our support is often limited to each school, we recognized that mayors were a huge ally to our programs. We began seeking official collaborations through our Letters of Understanding. Our team was able to successfully secure signatures from all 17 Intibucá mayors. Equipment and local Kolibri IT Supports are two things that they committed to helping with.
Additionally, we have expanded to working with our frontera region mayor association - AMFI. With their collaboration we are sharing responsibility over STEM initiatives like robotics.
Teacher Alliances
Teachers truly are the experts in their classroom. They interact day-to-day with and know the needs of their community. Embracing this, we began creating alliances with target groups of teachers.
STAR Teachers are selected due to having a deep understanding in Kolibri and a motivation to use it with students. We bring together these teachers to share their expertise, ingenuity and struggles. STAR teacher also help us motivate and train new Kolibri teachers and lead field testing of new program initiatives.
Grade or Subject specific teacher groups facilitate discussions on resources and best practices of technology use amongst peers. In the past we have had Kinder teachers, science teachers, math teachers and other groups active.
Schools and Communities
When our program expands, communities become excited to receive the gift of technology and innovation. Capturing this energy we work alongside them to ensure that there is a commitment at home and in the classroom to use Kolibri. Parents need to sign an agreement to supervise and care for any tablet taken home. Schools also sign an agreement to use equipment for educational and not personal purposes.
Furthermore, we ask both to sign a "Community Agreement" as part of our plan to ensure sustainability. Our community is asked to purchase or secure funding for a TV and begin a school fund to replace future equipment. This acknowledges that technology does not last forever and wear is a natural result of use. We also do not want to deter parents from allowing their student to engage with Kolibri for fear that they will break a tablet and have to pay for it, each case is evaluated on a case-by-case basis.
In bringing together parents for our projects, some have even realized their organizing potential and fundraised for other school improvement projects. For these reasons, involvement of the Parent Association and its president in our Kolibri program is very important.