Project Report
| Nov 7, 2013
Training for Librarians throughout Central America
By Joan Fuetsch | Member, Board of Directors
![Early childhood training for librarians.]()
Early childhood training for librarians.
Very recently, under the very able leadership of our early dhildhood development expert, Alba Estrada, from Quiche, El Quiche, Guatemala conducted training sessions for our librarians in both Guatemala and Honduras. The program is being expanded to five communities in Guatemala and ten in Honduras and, with your ongling support, we hope to expand the program to all 65 libraries. There is no question that pre-literacy activities are crucial to later educational success and there is no question that the nutritional information that is disseminated to the familes is crucial in countries with very high rates of malnutrition. When asked to report of their experiences after a number of years of attending our first pilot program in Quiche most of the mothers mention first the change in their children after they learned about the need for a varied diet including protein and vegetables.
Young children should be lively and engaged in all the activities of an early childhood development program rather than listless and inattentive. With your help we will be able to expand this program throughout the network of 65 communities that we currently serve. Thank you again for your ongoing support.
![Activites of early childhood development]()
Activites of early childhood development
![Alba showing how to introduce numbers/letters]()
Alba showing how to introduce numbers/letters
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Aug 14, 2013
Consultant Gives Excellent Rating to Program
By Joan Fuetsch | Board Member
![Yaelle Stempfelet evaluating pilot program]()
Yaelle Stempfelet evaluating pilot program
In July of 2013 Yaelle Stempfelet who is working on a Master's degree in International Education at the University of Massachusetts with a specialty in early childhood development was retained to evaluate our existing pilot project. Yaelle, who is tri-lingual (English, French and Spanish) spent five years as the director of a bi-lingual Montesorri pre-school in Antigua, Guatemala. As research for her Master's thesis Yaelle visited the pilot project in Quiche on a regular basis and evaluated the curriculum and also interviewed the mothers to gain feedback on the existing program.
Yaelle, who expected to have to develop the curriculum, was pleasantly surprised at the high quality of the work that Alba has done. In interviewing the mothers the recurring theme was "more, more, more." Some of the moms also had good suggestions for additions to the program and most emphasized the importance of the nutritional information. It was clear that the moms were very hungry for information on how to improve the lives and opportunities for their children.
With your help we will be able to add to Alba's program and expand it to four other libraries in our network.
![Roberto's mom has been coming since he was 3 mos.]()
Roberto's mom has been coming since he was 3 mos.
![This is our goal!]()
This is our goal!
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May 28, 2013
Big Push for Early Childhood Development
By Joan Fuetsch | Project Leader
![Mom helping her kids to get started.]()
Mom helping her kids to get started.
In just a few weeks a young woman who is pursuing her Master's degree at the University of Massachusetts in international education with a focus on early childhood development will be headed to Guatemala where she is going to evaluate our existing program and do a proposal for expanding the program through the Riecken network of 64 libraries. Mothers are going to be interviewed and children tested in several communities to determine the effectiveness of the existing program and to help design an ongoing program. We already know that the mothers are eager to have nutritional information. Like mothers everywhere they would like to do what is best for their children but often do not have the necessary information. Often the mothers are illiterate which severely limits their access to nutritional information. We are very hopeful that you will continue to contribute to this very worthy project so that soon we might have thousands of children enrolled.
![Handling shapes facilitates letter recognition]()
Handling shapes facilitates letter recognition
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