Every year, 19 teachers from across Honduras are recognised for their exceptional qualities and achievements as teachers and educators. These teachers are chosen from the roughly 60,000 educators across the country, and are individuals who stand out for their passion and dedication in teaching Honduras’ youth and driving change in the educational sector.
This year, two teachers from the educate. community were amongst the celebrated “Teachers of the Year.”
Normally, the teachers awarded with this honour travel to the “Casa Presidential” (Presidential House) for a ceremony, but this year the ceremony took place via Zoom, with all the teachers present virtually.
Nery Molina
Nery Molina is the single teacher of the La Florida primary school who led his community in starting an educate.-supported library last year. Nery’s school is located three hours into the Sierra de Agalta mountains of Olancho, and because there is no secondary school Nery also coordinates a distance learning programme for his students to be able to continue their studies beyond the sixth grade.
La Florida does not have road access, so Nery walks for three hours to get there. He stays in the village from Monday to Friday, then returns back to Catacamas, the city at the foot of the mountain, on weekends. During lockdown, he is continuing to walk up to the village at least once every week to give out assignments, give feedback, and to continue to support his students in their learning. His students even organised an anniversary celebration for their library via Zoom!
Nery is an educator with enormous dedication and who sees something special in each and every one of his students. For him no challenge is too small, and no dream to big. He and his students called their library “Leer es Soñar” – To Read is to Dream.
“I believe that students’ personalities are formed through reading, motivating them to participate responsibly in the community,” Nery said, describing his motivations for leading the community library project.
Magdaly Pérez
The second teacher from the educate. community to be recognised was Magdaly Pérez, the director of Trinidad’s public Kindergarten and former Secretary of Education for the municipality of Trinidad.
Magdaly has spent years dedicated to supporting education in her community, both as a passionate classroom teacher and as an advocate for education in the municipal government.
In 2018, educate. supported the starting of a classroom library at Magdaly’s Kindergarten in Trinidad. But Magdaly has been part of the educate. community since the very beginning, having been a mentor to one of educate.’s founders, Lisa van Holsteijn, since well before we started our work as an organisation.
We continue to be inspired by the work of the individuals in our community across Honduras, and it is an incredible honour to work with and learn from such committed local educators. Congratulations Nery and Magdaly!
educate. 