Costa Rica - Strenghtening young leadership

Strenghtening Young Leadership for Sustainable Community in Talamanca/ Costa Rica

 

Brief history

 

Since 2001, first as a project and then as an organization, ACEM has been building a series of relationships with local, national and international organizations that operate in the Talamanca region. A program called PSA (Preparation for Social Action) strengthens capabilities in four areas: Mathematics, Science & Technology, Language and Communication and Service to the Community.

 

Since 2006, when the first activities with the PSA program were begun, ACEM has been accompanying a group of communities in the Talamanca zone, among them: Mojoncito, Wats, Suretka, Bajo Coén, Coroma, Yorkin and Kéköldi, together they add up 100 students. Aditionally, ACEM has worked in environmental leadership projects in 20 communities of the Bribri Caécar native territory in the area known as the Talamanca Biological Corridor.

Other organizations that have been supporting ACEM and the PSA program directly are the Strachan Foundation, the Scotiabank in Costa Rica and OSED of the International Bahá'i Community.

 

Description of the existing situation

 

Costa Rica has for a long time enjoyed at the international level the reputation of providing quality education free of charge for its citizens. Nonetheless, this reputation is at risk due to important limitations which the Costa Rican educational system is now facing, which include:

 

• Low coverage and graduation rates at the secondary level, from ages 13-17
• High dropout rates and failure, especially in the transitions between school cycles II and III
• Pedagogy that does not respond to the need of creating a new society by focusing on memorizing information, mechanical procedures, low correlation between theory and practice and little critical analysis
• A lack of teacher training and a deficit of infrastructure
• A gap between urban and rural education, especially in rural and native communities facing even greater educational problems

 

 

As a consequence of all these factors, the number of young people that do not study, or have not finished their education or that dropout of traditional educational systems is very high. In addition, in their relationship to their environment, youth cannot relate every day behavior to practices that will generate the sustainable use of natural resources or positive incidence to climate change.  Moreover, the behavior of youth reflects a lack of comprehension of the potential nobility of the human being and corresponding values, as some are competitive individuals only seeking their own benefit. There is a lack of understanding of their social reality, a lack of vision, motivation and ability to find answers to current challenges.

 

Description of the project:

 

In response to this need, Unity Foundation in collaboration with our local partner ACEM plans to face the challenge that youth between the ages 13 to 25 are being empowered to participate in the generation and application of knowledge as protagonists in the transformation of a moral and intellectually prosperous Costa Rican society. 

ACEM established a cooperative agreement with FUNDAEC in Colombia to train and advise a support team and tutors of the organization. The PSA program is based on FUNDAEC's Tutorial Learning System, SAT which was approved and recognized by the Ministries of Education of Colombia, Honduras and Ecuador and which received a prestigious award by the well-known Club of Budapest's Change the world-Best Practice Award 2002.

 

In order to expand the PSA Program to other areas, ACEM is expecting to create pacts and agreements of different kinds with local organizations that can support PSA groups in the communities. The type of collaboration is of financial, moral and material support for tutors and participants and ACEM will creat the function of a local tutor coordinator of the Program that has educational and management responsibilities.

It seeks the support of socially responsible private business and in some cases small national foundations that can collaborate with part of the program costs within the regions.

 

Over the 5 year period, the project seeks to make some 430 students of the native Talamanca popluation the direct beneficiairies. Regarding socio-cultural and local sustainability in terms of the identification of tutors and participants, human resources are being raised that consider cultural elements such as native groups, rural populations and gender. We encourage women to register to the program and organize babysitting for their children, allowing the mothers to participate. ( In the PSA program 48% of total participants are women)

Duration of  project: 2009-2014

 

Link: to the pictures relating to this project

Budget

 

Institution	year 1	year 2	year 3	year 4	year 5	Total €
MAE*	49.645	49.608	50.122	49.162	56.512	255.049
UF	24.822	24.804	25.061	24.581	28.256	127.524
Total	74.467	74.412	75.183	73.743	84.768	382.573

 

 *MAE: Ministry of Foreign Affairs