+100 Schools and +7000 readers participated in the Reading Program 2022 run between Shoulder to Shoulder and the Intibucá Departmental Direction of Education.
Shoulder to Shoulder has been developing a Reading Program since 2019, which continued running even during the pandemic thanks to the efforts of our past employee, Nely Vásquez. This 2022, we dreamed that this project to be run at the Departmental level, giving to thousands of students the opportunity to participate, this dream has now come true.
We are pleased to see the participation of educational authorities in this process. The Departmental Director of Education said that she is taking action to institutionalize the Reading Program and thus run it out recurrently throughout the department each year.
The event was spectacular, the students had written essays and they did a presentation about one of the books they read, giving everyone there a wave of emotions. Personally, I was amazed by the demonstrations, where readers from the 17 municipalities showed their learning and experience lived during the Reading Program. The judges of the event were attentive to the participation of everyone, in fact, they had to make hard decisions with such good presentations.
Working with Kolibri during the reading program final championship
One decisive factor was applying an evaluation through the Kolibri platform; thanks to funding in part by the United States Department of State we were able to create digital reading comprehension exercises in our CREE channel. The students registered themselves into Kolibri, we enrolled them in a test, and they answered it quickly. We shared the process and results through a TV in real-time, and everyone was thrilled about it. Teachers who did not know Kolibri were very astonished at seeing the benefits of Kolibri and even more so when they saw that the internet was not a requirement.
To participate in the Reading Program, we invited students in grades from seventh to ninth from all Intibuca. It was an exciting process; 101 schools inscribe themselves with 7087 students. Shoulder to Shoulder, in cooperation with the structure of the Secretary of Education in Intubuca, working together, we saw 192 teachers coordinate and support their students in their reading adventures.
Recognitions
We gave recognition to the Fist and Second place from each municipality. The 17 first places faced multiple challenges to become the Departmental Champion.
1rst Places municipality level
2nd Places municipality level
There were between the talks of the students; some of them told me in their conversations, and others mentioned it in their speeches, "Thank Shoulder to Shoulder for bringing these programs into our lives" also, I heard many success stories, such as the one told by José Moisés del Cid, director of the Juan Ramon Molina School in San Juan, Intibucá, that his students even after the competition had passed, are highly motivated and demanding the hour of reading in the school. As I told you in previous blogs, Kolibri allows us to share with teachers and students libraries that contain titles in the public domain where hundreds. We are reaching out to thousands of students with this technology, and this is just the beginning.
"Thank you very much to the educational authorities and Shoulder to Shoulder for making projects like this Reading Program Possible, since it gives us the opportunity to share and have access to many books. Knowing that reading is very important in our lives I just want to say please continue supporting this program and thank you again."
Dayanna Krystel López Requeno, Champion of Reading Program 2022
These success stories are the best motivation for me to support projects like this to continue going further, involving more and more students year by year.
