Education

Jane Freeland, who convenes NSC’s Education Working Group, talked to Claire Plumb about how an interactive project led by the Leicester Masaya Link Group (LMLG) is helping British children learn about global citizenship. Claire recently led a Leicester City Council delegation to Masaya.

As part of our education campaign, the Nicaragua Solidarity Campaign (NSC) and town twinning groups have been discussing how to make more strategic use of the experience of years of solidarity with municipalities and communities in Nicaragua. The insights of this work into Nicaraguan daily life illuminate more vividly than any abstract analysis how Nicaragua’s problems derive from global systems involving us all. LMLG’s Food for Thought programme is an innovative example of how solidarity links can be built which draw on the experiences of both communities and are truly reciprocal.

A year ago, CAR covered the progress of the English for Community Tourism project in the Miraflor Nature Reserve near Estelí and the production of a teaching toolkit. Now the materials look set to boost English teaching in secondary schools. As part of a commitment to improving the education system and making it more accessible, the Ministry of Education is reforming primary and secondary syllabuses and training teachers in more participative methodologies. Maths and science are current priorities, while materials printed and recorded by the NEST Trust could give a boost to English language teaching.

Electoral observers wanted in El Salvador

The Centro de Intercambio y Solidaridad (CIS) is organising two election observer missions in 2009. The first will be from January 12-20 to observe the mayoral and legislative elections, and the second from March 9-17 for the presidential elections. CIS is looking for volunteers to help contribute to free and fair elections and generate a safe environment for democratic participation.

IN 1999, the Commission for Historical Clarification (CEH) calculated that, from 1981-83, a fifth of the population of the northern Guatemalan town of Rabinal – at least 4,441 people – lost their lives at the hands of the military. The CEH also pointed out that 99.8 percent of the victims of these massacres were indigenous Mayans (Maya Achi). These statistics support the compelling case for arguing that the campaign of violence was specifically directed at the Maya Achi people.

In 2003, the Community Museum Rabinal Achi, the Bufete Juridico Popular and the Association for Integrated Development of the Maya Achi in the Verapaces (ADIVIMA) wrote a book, Oj K'aslik (We're Alive), which has contributed to the recovery of the historical memory of Rabinal. Oj K'aslik concludes that it is vital to "eliminate the structural roots of the internal armed conflict, which includes promoting programmes for the eradication of ethnic discrimination in Rabinal".