By Colleen Ebken | Project Lead
A couple of weeks ago the Yachana Future Builders [our boarding students] finished the 2014 term at Yachana Training Center. Before leaving for end of year break they made good progress on Aquaponics project [see pictures] and the work will continue when they return January 2015. We taught over 180 day students this fall. With so many students wanting to attend our enrichment classes we had to add Saturday sessions just to have enough time to teach them all. We will miss our students over the end of year break and we wait anxiously for their return early January 2015!
We were sorry to say goodbye to volunteer teacher Christy. All the students loved her and she assured us that this was one of her greatest teaching experiences ever. She returned to Canada over the holidays but is off on her new adventure to Bali and Australia in January. Have fun Christy and come back to visit us often! We have three new volunteer teachers starting in January 2015 and we are looking forward to their arrival.
As part of the tropical permaculture curriculum everyone participated in planting banana and plantain circles. Now we have added yucca, squash, and pineapple to the mix. All the products are looking good. With the additional vegetables coming from the aquaponics farm and fresh Tilapia, teacher Mariana’s cooking and nutrition classes will be very exciting, and delicious, in 2015.
In addition to teaching our high school students we hosted two teacher’s conferences this fall, each with about 40 teachers from Yachana Inty. Educating teachers is one way we can make a big impact on the quality of education in the region. Yachana Future Builders, with the help of Mariana, prepared all the food for these conferences.
On a sad note a local parrot dined on our Internet cable. The Internet has never been the same since. We hope that donations we receive in 2015 can be used to get us back to normal. Life in the Amazon!
Look for regular updates on our progress early in 2015. We will introduce you to our new volunteer teachers and share some stories the students bring back from the end of the year break. We still have a long way to go in meeting our goal for the new classroom. As you plan your 2015 gift giving donations remember to factor out some dollars and support for this project.
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