December 2022 Newsletter 1
Community Organization and School Observations: An Important Facet of Our Work
Did you know our Adopt-A-School program funds more than just school supplies?
CONAPAC has a unique partnership with the Regional Directorate of Education in Loreto (GREL) who serves our partner community schools. Our interinstitutional agreement includes the cooperative ability to support the teachers working in our rural community schools, including workshops, informational meetings, and evaluations.
Traditionally, CONAPAC conducts community visits in November as part of our year-end evaluation process. We invite GREL leaders and specialists from the local education offices (UGEL Maynas) to join us. While the CONAPAC team converses with the community members about CONAPAC projects, the education specialists observe classes and meet with school principals and teachers to make inferences and suggestions regarding schools and teaching.
This year, for the first time since November 2019, the CONAPAC team and about 20 education specialists visited every partner community. Also with us were water specialists from the Iquitos office of SUNASS, a governmental agency focused on potable water. With the help of boats and drivers from Explorama, we split into teams and made our way along the rivers and tributaries over eight days.
The information gained from these visits will serve us in the following ways:
• Planning and proposing CONAPAC activities, including implementation of programs and workshops
• Identifying communities that need extra support within programs already in place
• Identifying communities that are excelling in collaboration, productivity, and cohesiveness, especially regarding resource use and protection and program implementation
Concerning education, our agreement with GREL allows us to do the following, based on the data obtained during these visits:
• Suggest placements for new teachers and principals
• Identify schools that may need extra support from local education resources
• Identify support needed for bilingual and Indigenous schools
An Example of the “Nature” of Our Work
–from Megan
The rivers rise; the rivers fall. When and how we reach communities is impacted by the seasonality of the water. In order to reach all 49 partner communities, we employed local boats and walked a long way from one community to another. It wasn’t always easy or comfortable. To me, this is a reminder of the daily challenges our communities face. The act of “walking in the steps” of others is one way of building compassion and empathy whereby we can identify with others' feelings from their perspectives. Every time I visit communities, I work on this; I consider it a privilege and an honor to be in the company of community members.
Megan McDaniel
Exectuive Director, CONAPAC
Want to donate?
We have several long-time donors and partner organizations who work tirelessly for CONAPAC as Pachita does; with you we can do so much for our communities.
Our work is only possible with the many other donations, big and small, that we receive throughout the year.
