Magical Classroom

Dear Friends of Magical Classroom Guatemala,

This year, 2021, continues to pose a number of significant challenges to the team at Magical Classroom. Covid-19 unsurprisingly remains a big part of our lives, and therefore the challenges that we face in order to carry out our daily educational activities at Magical Classroom. In order to ensure the safety and health of our communities, we are using a hybrid form of education, as well as respecting the national traffic light Covid safety system and the decisions made by the local authorities.

Despite the challenges, our programme has continued this year, and we have worked with our children for a total of ten weeks. In certain communities, small groups of children have been allowed to meet in the schools and this has certainly made life easier. However, in other communities, schools have remained closed for the safety of their community. When this is the case, our Facilitators have visited each home of our children whilst respecting all of the necessary precautions - using a face mask, washing hands, and taking their temperature. A significant advantage is that our Coordinators live within their communities and this provides the parents with valuable reassurance.

We are always looking at ways to allow us to continue our educational activities, and we feel that this is very important since the children who are already most affected, and will suffer the most from not receiving an education, will be our children. Unlike in other parts of the world, studying via a digital platform is unfortunately not feasible for our communities due to the poverty that they encounter. In the rural communities where we work, there is lighted access to electricity, often no Internet signal and very limited reception for mobile telephones.

I’m pleased to say that this year we have a total of 32 Magical Classrooms in place, which is 10 more than last year. However, there is no stopping there! We have plans to expand this number by working with a lot more communities that need access to vital pre-school education. Soon I will be sharing more details about the communities that we are looking to include in our program.

As always, we send you all of our very best of wishes and hope you and your loved ones are safe and well. Until our next update!

Warm regards,

Magical Classroom Guatemala