Link between Compadres and St. Paul University

This could be a great new initiative for Compadres! There is now the possibility that a Religious Ed Part II Additional Qualification (AQ) course may be put in place for teachers who want to come to El Salvador. Right now, we are just looking to see if there are people interested. If there is interest, we could have an AQ ready to go for this summer. Here is the text of the announcement that has been published on school board e-mail sites today:

Expression of Interest - Are you interested in taking Religious Ed Part II as part of a visit to beautiful, sunny El Salvador this summer?

We are currently asking for expressions of interest from teachers who would like to take Part II Religious Ed through St. Paul University. Participants would be in El Salvador from July 3 - 16 as part of the Compadres El Salvador Trip Experience

www.compadres-elsalvador-canada.ca

If you want to get your Part II in El Salvador this summer,as well as learn about the struggles and faith of an incredible people please contact Paul McGuire at - paul.mcguire@ottawacatholicschools.ca

For more information on the Compadres trip, please check out the link above.

what are the plans for this year's trip?

Now we start getting into specifics. What will the trip look like for this year? Rene, the new director of Salvaide is just finishing off a trip in El Salvador. This is great for us as he is in direct contact with the people we will be working with.

I will spend the next few blog posts going over some of our thoughts on what we could possibly do.

First, we are hoping to do some workshops using the computers they have in the schools at San Jose Las Flores. We are used to using computer hooked to the internet every day in our classes and it would be our hope to use some of our expertise to do some work with the kids we meet in San Jose.

Here is Rene's post on computer workshops;

checked with Nelson about the possibility of running computer-facilitated workshops. Unfortunately, conditions in schools in the area are such that they do not have many computers and none have access to the internet. This doesn’t bode well for the group's suggestion to use Scratch (computer program).

What we do now is digest this information and look for new ideas!

computer lab in San Jose Las Flores School

Dreams of El Salvador

In mid-February, El Salvador seems very far away. I have great hopes for this year's trip. I want to get to know the community in and around San Jose Las Flores. I want to start making some meaningful inroads with educators. I want to develop some important links here with the University of Ottawa. I would really like to have more people on the trip!

It seems sometimes that I am waiting for my big break - what will it be? How do we create the conditions so that we are making a contribution that will be significant?

It all takes patience and time. To develop sustainable linkages and meaningful dialogue will take time...more time.

Where we are right now

We are now a real group. We have four people (including me) for our trip for this year. For the first time, we have two teachers from the public board here in Ottawa. I am hoping that we will make new inroads into the public board with the help of these new participants!

We are working with a new executive director for Salvaide
Rene Guerra Salazar is the new director and he is currently in El Salvador getting to know our partners and some of the communities we will be working with.

We continue to work with Teachers Without Borders, although we will be working more in the background. Teachers Without Borders likes to work directly with in-country partners and we are doing our best to facilitate this. I am hoping that Rene and the TWB Mexico program officer will have the opportunity to develop some programming ideas for this year in El Salvador.

We are also trying to work with the Ottawa Catholic School Board to develop a course link to Religion courses offered by the University of Ottawa. This is complicated, slow business, but I know that we will be able to increase the size of this year's group if we are able to offer course credit for Catholic teachers. This is an attractive option for the university so I am hoping we will be able to work something out.

Right now, we are working on our program for this summer. I am hoping that Rene will be able to meet with some of our partners to firm up activities for July.

It is good to know that we have a trip confirmed for this year. For the first time, we have teachers who are interested in conducting workshops with teachers in El Salvador. This would be a new venture for us and offers us great new opportunities to enter into meaningful professional dialogue with Salvadoran teachers. Now we need to find ways to 'release' teachers so that these workshops will have lots of participation from local teachers.

All very exciting. More to follow as our 2011 program begins to take shape!

Paul



More exchanges like this planned for 2011

What to do with an immersion experience?

What to do with an Immersion Experience?
I went on my first trip to the Dominican 16 years ago. There is no question that this was an experience that changed the way I looked at the world. You hear people say that all the time, but what does this mean?

I think immersion trips can give you a new lenses to look at the world. You live your life seeing things a certain way and then all of this world view is upset when you realize that the world is not really the way you have experienced it.

I like the analogy of head, heart and hands or see, judge act – whichever way you put it, your immersion experience is a personal conversion – don’t let anyone tell you the experience will be like this or that – it is a personal experience. The conversion will lead you to a different world view. What I think it really important is what you do with that conversion.

This is where the ‘judging’ comes in, or the heart – you have seen what the majority world looks like, so what are you going to do with that new information? What are you motivated to do with all this? Whatever it is, and there are many ways to act on your knowledge, the change that you want to see happen should take place up here, in the North.

One thing I would suggest is that you read a lot once you return – try to put together why things are as you see them. What is there such grinding poverty and why do we allow this poverty to exist. Why is there so much destruction and misery in Haiti a year after the earthquake? So, educate yourself, then look for ways you can change the structures that exist in the North that allow this imbalance to continue. Try to find ways to ask difficult questions and earn to be critical of a world that benefits from this inequality.

Think about social justice – do charity. Make sure that you can keep both going when you act. Acting or ‘hands’ is the last part of all this. You have seen the world, you are learning to reach conclusions, now, what are you going to do with all of this? Sure, charity work will always be important – the people of Haiti need new homes, schools and real employment and healthcare. But you are going to have to ask yourself – why does this happen in Haiti, in the Dominican Republic, in El Salvador and in so many parts of the Global South. Where is the justice in all the poverty that exists – what do we who benefit from so much in the world going to do to right the balance?

That can easily take a lifetime to answer – just make sure you act as well as ask.

The interesting work begins

For the past six months, we have been working on promotion. All this in an effort to get a group of teachers to come with us this summer. We are now working on program development. This is the really creative phase!

Basically, the schedule looks like this:

day 1-5 - arrival in El Salvador, orientation and visiting sites of importance in San Salvador.



day 5 - 11 - Stay in Chalatenango, working with CCR and teacher co-op



Day 11 - 14 - Beach Day and return to San Salvador for further travel or return home.



What I am really interested in right now is day 5-11. This part of the program is largely undefined - which is great! Teachers Without Borders and CRIPDES (Nelson) are working on ideas for this section - but I really want your ideas. What would be good for this week - participants, what would you like to do and explore? Former participants - based on your experience, what do you think we should be doing?

Here are some of my ideas



1. A workshop on popular education methods hosted by Equipo Maiz - a day-long experience where Canadian and Salvadoran teachers can learn and share together.










2. Exploration of the issue of mining - Canadian mining companies really want to open this area up to mining - lets explore community attitudes on this issue







3. Extended history lesson on San Jose Las Flores - this is a really interesting community that was deserted during the war and resettled while the conflict still raged - this history has created a vibrant community.

That's a start

What are your ideas??

what does Compadres 'look' like?

What is Compadres? This wordl is interesting and says lots about what is important for Compadres right now.