Livia Jakob

Volunteering has brought me closer to my roots – a story from an online volunteer

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Author: Sebastian Classen (18), online volunteer based in the USA

Sebastian was born in El Salvador, but grew up in Switzerland, the UK and the USA. In this short article he tells us about his online volunteering work with the Consciente team in El Salvador and what it meant to him to get closer to his roots.

«Understanding my heritage and roots became important as I wanted to connect with my birth country El Salvador. At the top of my list was learning about the culture and my people. My research led me to Consciente, a Swiss non-profit organization helping the youth of El Salvador through various educational programs and social support. I approached Consciente’s board and presented my idea of teaching English as a Second Language. English is a universal language and essential skill which I believe can open doors professionally and academically to numerous opportunities. My primary purpose was, and continues to be, giving back and helping the children of El Salvador.

After a few interviews the board agreed to allow me to teach English to the staff running the Consciente programs. Initially, I had planned to travel to El Salvador and conduct classes in person. Unfortunately, due to the global pandemic, I couldn’t travel, and instead, I changed the class format to a Zoom setting. Over the year, I gained a new respect for my teachers as I prepared lesson plans, struggled with Wifi connectivity issues, and poured over material to use. Though it was challenging at first, and I wasn’t sure if I was making a difference, I noticed minor improvements week by week. My students are now ager to learn, committed, and always show their appreciation for my time. I have formed wonderful relationships with them. Additionally, I am impressed by their dedication. While I was teaching class in the afternoon in Europe (during the summer), and currently in the early afternoon in the US, they are up at 6 AM to participate in this learning opportunity.

Not only have I loved being able to help build their English skills, but I have also loved learning about El Salvador through the more personal details of their daily lives. They taught me about our shared culture and the different aspects of the country.  We would often engage in conversations, which were limited, because of the language barrier. They would share future aspirations, dreams, or just fun anecdotes about their excursions to black sand beaches and the ‘big city’ of San Salvador. It was heart-warming to develop such a strong bond with each other and to see how they responded to my classes with excitement and ambition. I also found it incredible that so many were deeply invested in college work or going to graduate school in psychology or sociology while balancing their lives with teaching and other activities. They made me realize how important it is for people to be given a chance to explore their gifts and talents. This experience has inspired me to seek further opportunities to help people through their educational journey. To see all of them laughing and smiling during my lessons has brought me immense joy – especially when they call me ‘teacher’ or ‘professor.’  In many ways, this has been a symbiotic relationship – we learn and positively benefit from each other.

It has been a very rewarding journey that has brought me closer to my roots while meeting and helping great people along the way.»

 

Support Consciente:

Want to get involved yourself? There are a number of ways to support our work:

Become a volunteer: You can either support us from abroad (e.g. in a similar way Sebastian has), in Switzerland as part of the support association or become a volunteer on site in El Salvador. Get in touch with us for more information.

Donate: In order to continue the projects in El Salvador, we depend on your support. Donations to Consciente (Switzerland) can be deducted from (Swiss) taxes.

Fund a scholarship: By funding a Consciente scholarship, you enable youth from poor backgrounds to pursue technical or university education and give their families and communities a perspective on a better future.

More information
Livia Jakob

Annual report 2021 (English summary)

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Dear friends

2021 is slowly coming to an end. In the second pandemic year in a row, our Consciente team in El Salvador continued to work with great commitment and creativity to improve access and quality of education.

Thanks to the great commitment of many volunteers in Switzerland – but also in Spain, Germany and Scotland – in 2021 more than 99% of the donations were used directly in El Salvador. From online project meetings, writing reports and newsletters to administration and bookkeeping, all work outside El Salvador is done on a voluntary basis.

In our annual report we summarise the challenges and successes of 2021 and give an insight into our work in El Salvador. We have created an English summary of the report in this post below. For more details refer to the full report (in German).

We hope you enjoy reading it and we thank everyone who supports our work!

The Consciente Switzerland team

ANNUAL REVIEW | 2021 in brief

 

Consciente has now been committed to accessible and quality education in El Salvador for almost 10 years. In 2021 a total of 45 employees and various volunteers were working for Consciente in El Salvador. They are the driving force behind our educational work and have developed and implemented our projects with impressive creativity, professionalism and efficiency. In 2021, Consciente was again able to contribute to a sustainable development driven by the people of El Salvador themselves. Below is a quick overview what has been achieved in 2021 for each of our 3 project lines.

 

SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAMME | Scholarships as an engine for development

Through our Scholarship Programme, we enabled 116 talented young people to complete another year of training and provided them with intensive support and technical equipment in distance learning. In around 14,000 hours of community service in local projects, they were also able to give something back to their communities this year.

The Scholarship Programme 2021 in numbers:

  • 116 scholarship holders were supported
  • 17 scholarship holders completed their degree this year
  • 28 new scholarship holders
  • 14,000+ hours of community service were provided by the scholarship holders

EDUCATIONAL INNOVATION | Innovative ways to higher quality of education

The Educational Innovation Programme focuses on the quality of primary education. In 2021, comprehensive in-service training on didactics, digital teaching methods for distance learning and mathematics was provided for over 150 teachers. An important milestone was the start of the QUEST project this year, in which we develop and systematically evaluate further training in cooperation with the University of Bern and pedagogical experts. In our work with almost 1,000 schoolchildren, the focus was on addressing subject gaps in mathematics as well on mental health.

The Educational Innovation Programme 2021 in numbers:

  • 162 teachers were trained
  • 29 professional learning videos were produced
  • 513 schoolchildren participated in supplementary math lessons
  • 477 schoolchildren attended workshops on mental health

SUSTAINABILITY EDUCATION | Being part of the social change

In our Sustainability Education Programme, we promote knowledge and social engagement on key social issues such as gender, environment, health and democracy. In addition to the intensive educational work with the scholarship holders, 24 local organisations also participated in our workshops or were supported in their own projects in 2021.

The Sustainability Education Programme 2021 in numbers:

  • 75 workshops were held
  • 480 members of civil society organisations participated in the workshops
  • 123 scholarship holders and volunteers participated in the workshops
Read the full annual report (in German)

 

Livia Jakob

My memories from El Salvador

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Report by Otto Härö about his volunteer work at Consciente

Xiomara, the teacher in one of the two schools I was working in as a volunteer in El Salvador, sent me a video just some weeks ago. In the video the children of the school were singing “The Lion Sleeps Tonight”, in plain English. That’s one of the videos that has brought me most happiness, and it made me want to go back to El Salvador. Seeing, after being away from El Salvador for months, that the children still sing so well and with so much energy was something really inspiring.

What I liked a lot in my stay as a volunteer in Consciente was the cooperative air they have. In Consciente we did things together. Although teaching English and arts was kind of my own project there, the people around me were interested to know how I was doing and were always keen on supporting me. Whether it was helping in the planning the classes or listening to how well, or how badly, I felt the classes that day had worked out. By the way, the more active the classes were, the better they worked out. Bingo with English numbers was one of the favourite activity of the children. And of course singing “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” together 😉

In El Salvador they do things together. One example; When we went to spend a day by the beautiful river Sapo, of course we took with us the ingredients to prepare bean soup on the spot. Once we were there, some started to prepare the beans, some to find firewood and others to prepare the fire. The atmosphere of togetherness and the unreserved warmth in El Salvador made a strong positive impact on me. And the bean soup always tastes much better after having prepared it together!

Apart from the classes in the schools with the children, I had the opportunity to participate in other activities of Consciente as well. I had the opportunity to get to know many of the students Consciente supports. Participating in the educational events and everyday life of the students I learned a lot, but also I felt that I had the opportunity to participate in something really important and significant. In my opinion, what makes Consciente bigger and more effective, is the believe in the people it has. In Consciente it is believed that a change and positive impacts come from the people, by empowering the people to go forward and inspire others.

 

Author: Otto Härö from Finland, Volunteer for Consciente from February 2016 – April 2016

More information about volunteering with Consciente
Website SCI Switzerland