The Chaski in Bolivia: Today's learners are tomorrow´s leaders - A travel to the 21st century

Author : Sylvia van den Berg-Ortega
Date added : 2003-09-09

Brief Project Background

AYNI Bolivia-Nederland is a small organization of Bolivian emigrants in the Netherlands. For the past few years, this organization has been working to collect lots of computers and send them to suburban schools in Bolivia.

This story starts in February 1998, with the shipment and handing over of the first lot of computers. The school that received them is located in the outskirts of Oruro, in the Bolivian highlands. The computers are overhauled on every occasion before being distributed among the schools by the volunteers working for AYNI. Just like every suburban school in Bolivia, this one offers three different levels of education: elementary education, intermediate and evening school. Young people who work very hard during the day but that, in spite of that, are eager to finish their studies attend classes in the evening. Their parents, the educators and the students themselves have been receiving these donations with enthusiasm and with their harts full of hope.
Nevertheless, when some time later our organization carried out a follow up of the school activities, it was clear that the beneficiaries of the project had very little information concerning the up keeping of the computers, they were unable to repair them and they didn’t know how to deal with every day problems in the computers room

On April 1998, a Dutch volunteer arrives in Bolivia with the purpose of helping one of those schools. He has an important know-how on computers and networking and is full of entrepreneurial spirit. This volunteer arrives in Oruro armed with his knowledge, his youth and a book of elementary Spanish. At this point of the story, it is important to say that Oruro is located 4,000 m. above sea level and that the temperature there fluctuates between -18 and 25 º C. In the school, meanwhile, parents, teachers and students are looking forward to the arrival of the “expert” in computers: Lode Messemaker. Voluntarily, Teo, the teacher of English in the school, obtains from the school Headmaster the consent to teach Computer Science in the school and, together with the volunteer, they both take up the task of making the computers room available for use and they start with the computer science classes. With an equipment of eight working computers, they initiate the courses: DOS, Word, Excel and Paintbrush. These courses are a great success. So, the volunteer puts forward a strategy to get the necessary money to connect the school to the Internet. His plan is accepted and it is decided that the School Board will provide the funding for the connection expenses and the ISP. The computers are prepared to network. Everything is ready now, and a few weeks later, the students are able to attend a first workshop where they learn how to log on and how to surf the web.
During the school breaks and even after school time, the computers room is full of children and teenagers. Thanks to Lode, it is easy for every student now to search for information concerning all the school subjects. In the blinking of an eye, all the students have their own e-mail boxes and they can send e-mails to each other.

For a couple of children and young people, this volunteer work has been the opportunity to achieve their dreams...in a place where the arrival of trains is scheduled as “maybe next week”...in a country where 70% of the children and young people under 15 are constrained to work because in their families there is not enough money to provide food for everyone..... [Messemaker, L.. “Bolivia la aventura puede comenzar”, QUESTA Number 5, Year 17, March-April 2003]

But the story goes on. A new container arrived with more computers. More schools had the opportunity to take advantage of them. In May 2000 and sponsored by the IICD (International Institute for Communication and Development), AYNI started a training program for Computer Science teachers. The purpose of this program was to participate for the first time in the Global Teenager Program (GTP) [Stichting AYNI Bolivia-Nederland, “Annual Summary”, 2001]. Something like 30 teachers attended the classes with a great success. In 2002, it was decided to transform this pilot project into a program with a wider participation under the name: PROGRAMA CHASKI GTP en BOLIVIA. This program engages 37 Educational Institutes (elementary or primary schools and secondary schools offering formal and informal education), all of them underprivileged institutions located in Oruro, a city with a long tradition in mining and industrial activities.[Stichting AYNI Bolivia-Nederland, “Annual Summary”, 2002].

The Chaski GTP program in Bolivia has taken several features of the GTP and has joined and mingled them with the Bolivian actual conditions. This program aims at the inclusion of the Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in the teaching and learning process. It is expected that these technologies will encourage the participation of underprivileged children and young people from poor families in the outlying districts of Oruro, in Bolivia, and their inclusion in the information age.

The Beginnings

In May 2000, this time thanks to the support of a Dutch TV broadcaster, KRO, and of Rabobank (they donated the first computers), and with the economic support of the IICD, ANYI managed to organize a training course for Computer Science teachers. The purpose of this activity was to open the way for the schools to participate in the Global Teenager Program. This training course was a great success, and for that reason it was decided to expand this pilot project into a program with a widespread participation. This program has been active since 2002 under the name of: PROGRAMA CHASKI GTP en BOLIVIA

It adopts the idea of the “chaski” (in times of the Incas, the man in charge of the transmission of news, running at high speed) and incorporates this idea into a worldwide program as it is the ‘GTP’ (Global Teenager Program). This is carried out through the Learning Circles. AYNI has had a pioneer role in March 2001, acting together with some other organizations in seven countries. AYNI has been one of the first participants and up to now it has been working with success, even though the language has been a serious obstacle.

The Chaski GTP program in Bolivia focuses on the introduction of the Information and Communication Technologies in Elementary and Secondary Schools in Bolivia. It helps more than 12.000 students in 37 Educational Institutes in the city of Oruro and its outlying districts. By making these students competent in the use of ICTs, this program provides them a way into the technological breakthroughs of the 21st century. The Chaski program has taken several features of the GTP and has incorporated them into the Bolivian actual conditions. The objective is still the same: the successful inclusion of the ICTs into the teaching-learning process. This will contribute to the participation of children and young people from underprivileged sectors in Bolivia, and to their inclusion in the digital era allowing them to participate in online discussion forums not only in Bolivia but also worldwide. The second training prepared for the teachers is ”Creative Learning". It consists in working together with the educational staff in the creation of educational contents in accordance to the actual requirements of the students.

Chaski in practice

The success of the Chaski Program is due to the coordinated and full participation of every one of its partners. Its implementation is the result of the efforts made by every actor in the project and represents the success of the program as a whole. This is the methodology of our project:
· Organization of management committees
· Provision of the equipment for the computers lab in each Educational Institute
· Implementation of the Train-the trainer program for the educational staff (a program of technical and educational training and skills development according to the different branches of knowledge and the different levels of education), together with the Creative Learning Program.
· Training activities for the students.
· Participation of the students in online information sharing programs.
- GTP international Roundtables for online information sharing
- ‘Creative Learning’. The implementation of innovative teaching methods
- My Virtual-friend. The online sharing of cultural contents (Bolivia-Bolivia, Bolivia-Netherlands)

We are already on the go. There are many obstacles but they only encourage us to keep going on with our work. We are taking one step at a time and we are all learning a lot at the same time as the program continues to develop and grow. Since February 2003, 37 Educational institutes in the outlying districts of Oruro and in the rural areas near the city have been gradually entering the information age. The workshop that officially started this program was carried out during the first days of February. All the sectors represented in the Management Committees attended the workshop (headmasters, educators, parents and students). In March, the program was exposed to the media and to the local decision makers. Due to the success of the program and to the interest that it aroused, a letter of intention was signed last year, in August, in order to consider the possibility of transforming Chaski into a national experience.

The Trainees

The students participating in this program are more than de 12.000 children and youths living in the city of Oruro, Bolivia. It is hard to imagine the joy of these kids and their parents. Living in the outskirts of the city, they would never have dreamed to have such a tool available for them even before than the students who attend public schools in the center of the city. “I had never dreamed to see the children in the little school of my neighborhood use a computer” says a mother of 4 school age children, all of them attending the same school, in the area of Aurora, on the way to La Paz. Reality goes beyond our dreams: These children are not only learning to use the conventional programs, but they are also participating, by means of the Internet, in online discussion forums. Soon they will be able to visit many libraries others than the Municipal Library, with its outdated books. The Library of the City of Barcelona, perhaps, and there, they will have the possibility to update their knowledge. The children are no longer afraid of giving expression to their desires. They say: we want an online lab for sciences like chemistry or physics (for experimentation and research)
Another level of participation in this process of learning and maybe the most important one is the involvement of the educational staff in the training activities that have been created for them: approximately 100 teachers are in the process of being trained. The enthusiasm is not massive and the reason for this is very well known: teachers receive very low salaries; so, most of them are engaged in more profitable activities, others than teaching, after school time and they are not interested in attending retraining courses or just have no time for that.

From the start, it was necessary to train the teachers on how to take profit of ICTs, as many of them were very reluctant. Even if they were willing to learn, many of them believed that they were too old to start learning activities again. The fact that it is not easy to follow up technological breakthroughs only by means of the Press, helped to convince them. They were aware of the fact that a certain expertise in the use of ICTs is extremely important for any teacher. In the initial stage, the training was intended for the Computer Science teachers in every Educational Institute. Later, these teachers passed their knowledge on to their colleagues of other branches of knowledge. At their time, these colleagues will be able to take advantage of this knowledge and improve their own performance in the classroom. The other objective that is being accomplished is the Creative Learning one that focuses on using ICTs in the classroom and for the classroom.

Results

The achievements
After two years of active participation, thousands of students in more than 37 Educational Institutes in the outlying districts of Oruro and in the rural area of the Department are actively and successfully implicated in this process of learning and the number grows day after day. As you would expect, there have been many hindrances, principally caused by misinformation, distrust, lack of organization, selfishness and lack of interest. But these mistakes are overcome one at a time and each one of them is transformed into a lesson learned.
A neophyte error was changed into a new experience: the whole computers room of the “Unidad Educativa Bolivia” was robbed. This incident showed us the importance of paying attention to some collateral aspects such as the precautions to protect the equipment, the advantages of relying on the interest in the project of the entire community, the significance of the cooperation of the school authorities, etc. Certain issues such as the security of the classrooms and of the different spaces where courses are taught contributed to the success of our mission. For this, we relied on the participation of the whole educational community and of the local decision makers “Our little school” did everything that was possible and achieved an impossible: we were able to recover the complete lot of computers.
Another mistake that we managed to transform into strength comes across in the anecdote that Marlieke van Leeuwe tells us. She is a trainer and the leader of the “Creative Learning” program. She tells us that the rural community of Choquecota had signed up for the Chaski program as they were very interested in participating. During the inspection visit, the project team could notice that this community had several new classrooms and spaces for the implementation of the program, but that they didn’t have electric power! They told the community leaders that this deficiency would prevent their qualification for the program, as electricity is an essential and indispensable requirement for the use of computers. When they found out that without electric power they would not be eligible for the program they immediately decided to make a blockade of the roads (a very common protest action in Bolivia). They succeeded in having the wiring and the service connections for electricity supply done in less than a month. This is something really exceptional in Bolivia. Marlieke says that at present she is incredibly happy when she sees those young boys and girls living in that remote rural area using a computer as easily as any other young boy or girl in the city!
How did we manage to turn all these obstacles into strengths? We devoted a great amount of patience and we worked hard every day. Here goes another example: the development period of the program happened together with an election campaign. The fashionable question was: Which political party has managed the donation of the lots of computers? In spite of all the information meetings, they believed that we were giving away computers! So, we were forced to carry out never-ending informative meetings, in order to explain the philosophy of our organization: we give what we receive and we receive what we give. (AYNI means retribution)!

Lessons

Cooperation and united efforts

In each stage we have asked for collaboration to:
- The management committees: we ask for their time and their management capacity; in return they receive training for the administration and management of their resources
- The Computer Science teachers: we offer them a high-priced training; in return they are asked to provide their knowledge to their colleagues
- The parents: we give them the opportunity to improve their children’s education, but they are asked to pay for the upkeep of the computers room.
- The Headmasters are asked to collaborate in the organization. In return, we contribute to the renown of their schools.
- The teachers of other branches of learning: they receive free training, but they are asked to attend the classes and to be interested in learning.
- The students: we provide them with a very valuable training on how to use ICTs. But we ask them to attend classes, to be enthusiastic, to participate in extra-curricular classes (websites design and building, participation in the GTP, etc).

The technici@ns in charge of the provision of the services and the local training

The issue of gender was taken into consideration from the beginning. Two Bolivian pros, 1 man and 1 woman, were responsible for the training (one of them is an expert in networking and data transfer and the other an engineer with an advanced training in ICTs). Both had a previous experience in teaching activities. Among the educators there was a good amount of Computer Science teachers. Nevertheless, due to the traditional Latin mentality, the work of our technici@ns and most of all their capacity was questioned, many times, for gender reasons! But, we believe that there is a solution for everything and we are determined not to let this gender issue constitute a serious obstacle. The members of the team are: Keiko (responsible for the technical coordination of the program), Sigrid (technical advisor), Mavi (pedagogical coordinator) and Patty (the assistant). Most of the times, when they arrived at the schools to set up the computers and the provision of the services, they heard things like:
“But young ladies, where is the engineer, when is he coming to provide the services? - Headmasters and teachers asked anxiously,
“Here and right now” was the answer; and in fact “Borys´angels (the engineer) always went away leaving behind a computers room working perfectly!!!

Train-the-trainer... It works!

At first, an external team was responsible for the training. But the members of this team were there for help only for a few months. Our teachers are young pros with an advanced training in Computer Science and in most cases they have many years of experience in teaching activities. The use of the Linux platform was severely discussed at the beginning. At present, having finished the training and the practical instruction, Linux is still a matter of discussion and research and the experts haven’t pronounced themselves yet. The teachers in charge of the ICT training have formed an association where they share their ideas and their personal research.

The teachers of other branches of knowledge have many years of experience in teaching, but nevertheless, they are eager to become students again, even on Sundays! Learning how to use the new technologies is for them a didactic challenge. This knowledge will allow them to make use of these technologies when they teach and this will contribute to the success of their classes. At present, there are more than 150 teachers receiving basic ICT instruction.

The challenge

Finances are undoubtedly the most serious matter requiring our attention: ‘even if each educational institute manages its resources in an independent way, it is our duty to keep an eye on how these resources are used. We believe that all the participants must be able to give explanations for how they use their resources. This way of acting is not familiar for Headmasters and parents’ - informs Keiko Ignacio, the team member in charge of the coordination of the Chaski Program in Bolivia. The parents also play a very important role, as they have to cope with the expenses implied by this improvement in their children’s education. In relation to this, the participants provided many examples, like the anecdote of a Headmistress of a school who, alarmed by the parent’s never-ending complaints, called for an urgent meeting in the school. While the parents were waiting in the computers room, very worried about having to cope with the expenses caused by the teacher’s salary, the up keeping of the computers and the ISP, the Computer Science teacher showed them the possibilities offered by ‘la patata’ a software to master the use of the mouse (learning to draw by playing). -finally, the parents who had gone to the meeting to complain about their having to pay the fees, and assuring that the screen would damage their children’s vision, ended by asking the headmistress to organize evening courses for parents!
In last July, SABN hired an auditor, who by request of the Educational Institutes helps them to prepare the financial reports.

The future

At present, our new challenge is the development of new content. We want to spread out our operating range, and help the young people to develop their own ideas. We still wish to:

- Improve our participation in the GTP, acting for Bolivia
- Integrate ourselves in other programs of E-learning
- Have our own ISP and guaranteed technical assistance
- Participate in online programs of knowledge sharing.
- Create our own contents: websites, online sharing (and also face to face) with other cultural scenarios in the country
- Improve the methodology for the teaching of certain subjects by means of the introduction of the ICTs into de classroom
- Recruit a bigger number of Educational Institutes for the program

Development Impacts

See under results and lessons learned.

Project Information

Organisation : Stichting AYNI Bolivia Nederland
URL : http://www.@ayni.nl
Total budget in US$ : 250.000
Country of activity: Bolivia [BO]

What is partners role?: The partners of this Project are the “Unidad de Servicio a la Educación”, under the Ministry of Education of Bolivia, and the different Educational Institutes in charge of the promotion of our activities, together with their Headmasters and the parents in the School Board.

Contact Information

Sylvia van den Berg-Ortega
Sylvia@ayni.nl
Verheulstraat 1, 3552 XW , Utrecht, +31- 30 - 273 5157

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