We are incredibly excited to be able to announce that educate. has recently partnered with the International School of Panama in Panama City. The International School of Panama is home to over 1200 children from 50 countries and runs from Pre-K to 12th grade. educate. has partnered with the school’s Grade 6 Global Issues class, a rotating group of students who spend a term engaging with global issues such as service learning and activism. This partnership adds a new aspect to our work, allowing us to engage students in Panama in thinking about the issues at work in Honduras and the different ways these can be combated through education-related and community-focused projects, and giving them opportunities to work on real-life projects like this themselves. This new team of motivated students will, we are sure, make for an interesting and dynamic partnership, and already we have been SO impressed by the work they are doing!
The International School’s Grade 6 Global Issues class leads this partnership, working on real-life service projects through educate.. On a broad scale, the students gain insight into the field of charitable work and the multitude of issues associated with it (from the practical to the ethical), and on a smaller scale the projects teach students about individual communities and their needs and how small-scale projects can create a wide impact for individuals.
“Global Issues is one of my favourite classes,” says grade 6 student Zachary Jones. “In Global Issues, we help solve worldwide problems that are happening. In this semester, me and my classmates have been working together to help solve a critical problem: education. Not just any education, but quality education for kids.”
Having students in Panama learning about Honduras, the importance of education, and engaging in problems like poverty and inequality and how to provide assistance to people suffering from these, is incredible. We have been inspired by the enthusiasm that the students have shown and the voraciousness with which they have thrown themselves into this project. We are hoping for this partnership to be a long-lasting, sustainable collaboration, allowing for continued learning and growth on all sides.
Currently, the Global Issues class in Panama is organising a book drive to collect Spanish-language books for primary school children. These books will be going to the Guadalupe Ulloa school in the rural town of Trinidad in Honduras, where educate. is working to start a library. You can read more about this project here.
“Since we decided to get involved with educate. in Honduras, we asked them what they needed help with. They responded asking for books and a library. So, we got on the job, and decided to start a whole-school book drive to help the village kids in Honduras have the resources they need,” says Zachary.
One of educate.‘s board members, Antonia McGrath, skyped with the Grade 6 class a few weeks ago to talk about the project. The students asked insightful questions and had already come up with a plan to work in different teams to organise the book drive, with a team dedicated to each of the following: research, logistics, publicity, selection and storage, each with a team leader. While the class teacher, Ms. Broeckel, is supporting them, the students are the ones in charge. “I want this to be their project, not mine,” she says.
The students in the class have been highly engaged and motivated.
“This is truly a whole-school service project,” says Celeste Jaramillo, a member of the logistics committee in the Global Issues class. “Students in global issues have been promoting this project at various flag assemblies. The idea is for all the families to donate books so we can reach our goal of 350 books for the village.”
We’re really excited about this new partnership, and so impressed by the work the Grade 6 students are doing. Our projects empower children and youth in Honduras, but being able to work with these students in Panama is also empowering them to use their abilities to make change. We hope that they will learn a lot through these experiences and that they’ll take their learning with them beyond these projects to become global citizens who understand the issues that our world faces in all their complexity and who use their privilege to make this world a more just and equal place.
We’re very excited to be working with Panama International School, and to see where this partnership will take us!
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