Empowering Indigenous Girls in the Peruvian Amazon

At Enseña Perú we are committed to providing quality education to hundreds of children in the country. Today we will share the story of Joel Alessandro, a student from the Amazon region who, given the current situation generated by covid-19, has sought new ways to continue his learning.

In order to share his story, Alessandro had to go up the mountain, the only place where he reaches cell phone and internet signal.

This is the story of Joel Alessandro, a new student at IE Alberto Acosta Herrera, he is in the second grade of high school and I met him by phone call, the only way I have to contact my students, from his first word he transmitted a lot of enthusiasm and his concern about the situation his community is facing.

Alessandro expressed himself very well in his call, but he spoke somewhat hurriedly, it was around 8am and his consultation was about the area of social sciences, an area that I am not in charge, but his enthusiasm filled me with energy very quickly and I tried to help him. .

I contacted him at the end of the first program of “Learn at home” and we introduced ourselves formally, I was very excited to tell him that I had obtained the video of the social sciences class and I had also contacted his area teacher.

In his presentation, he said that his father worked at the Alberto Acosta Herrera school, as cleaning staff and that he came from the Mesones Muro school, to help his father who lost his job due to the pandemic and affected people who went to work at the farm, on the other hand, told me that he had no television or radio to follow the learning schedule at home, the cell phone he had was from his dad and was the only way he had to communicate. At all times he was in a hurry, but very willing and eager to start the science and technology course, so quickly I gave him the work instructions and we acord to talk at the end of the program. At 2:45 pm, I managed to get in touch with him and he said that he had managed to watch the program at his neighbor's house, then he talked to the man so that he could share the internet to continue with his classes and not miss the year. , at the time we were speaking  he told me he could not continue talking because he was in the farm working with his father and that after 5:30 pm he would call me to guide him in the activities to be carried out.

When hanging up the call, I was very excited and moved by how a 14-year-old student does not expect the state to assist him, if he does not look for the means to fulfill his goals and dreams, I do not know him physically, but that day Alessandro made him recover enthusiasm for doing the job better than the year before.

I hope to continue sharing the story of a student who with concrete actions shows that there are no excuses for not studying and that he has a lot of commitment to his family, but above all he wants to improve himself.

Like Alessandro, there are many students in Amazonas who are willing to find new and creative ways to keep up with learning. They had to adapt to the current circumstances so learning doesn't stop.

In Enseña Perú, we believe in students like Alessandro. We believe that now more than ever we have to work together to close the gaps in education in order to give quality educaciton to as many students as possible despite the current situacion that we are facing.