Educator-led initiatives pave the way for better education

In Guatemala, poor quality of instruction and lack of educational resources results in high dropout rates which contributes to large-scale outbound migration and community violence.

At the local level there exist change agents who are potential leaders in education, but lack skills and resources. ConnectED identifies these change agents, supports them through training in leadership, project management, and access to 21st century technology, strategic partnerships and provides them with financial capital to address major educational issues in their communities.

ConnectED believes that IF education leaders are empowered to effect change through capacity development and resource provision THEN they can improve access, quality and relevance of education in their community WHICH WILL RESULT IN better learning outcomes and prospects for youth in the most vulnerable communities across Central America. Our 5 year goal is to impact the lives of 10,000 students, 1,000 teachers, and 100 schools.

Education in Latin America should be a means to empower children and adults alike to become active participants in the transformation of their societies. (UNESCO, 2017). However, schools, and the systems and communities that support them often have limited resources.

While Central America has made progress in policy reforms regarding pedagogy and curriculum, they still lag behind many countries in educational standards (UNESCO Institute for Statistics, 2017). Within Central America, Guatemala has one of the lowest investment rates per child/per school day, translating to insufficient educational materials and lack of infrastructure to accommodate the number of enrollees in public schools. Primary school dropout rates are over 20% and only half the population has completed primary school. 1 in 10 Guatemalans are illiterate and students take longer to advance through each grade level. Compounding this issue are contributing factors of poverty, geographic isolation, lack of basic needs, weak infrastructure, violence and political instability.

Systemic education change can take years and often is not connected to the realities and needs of local communities. Therefore, ConnectED identifies, develops and supports local change agents, at the community level, who can transform the education sector – one community at a time.

ConnectED improves education for rural indigenous youth in Guatemala who have limited educational resources. Most communities that we work with depend on subsistence farming/fishing/craft for their livelihoods and have an average population of approx. 1200 people. In some regions, families struggle with geographic isolation, which exacerbates the difficulty of access to basic needs.

Our work also extends to the local educators who are in dire need of support and resources to deliver quality education to their students and to parents and community members who are dedicated to finding new innovative ways to address informal education needs outside of the school system.

Our model was co-designed in partnership with local communities to provide education leaders, who know their communities best, with the tools and resources they need to tackle pressing educational challenges. Together, with our Fellows we engage local youth, their families, educators, and school staff to assess and prioritize education needs in their community and turn ideas into concrete actions. Fellows engage their community throughout the entire process to set goals, complete projects, and realize their own vision for improved learning. In this way we are able to ensure education projects are rooted in local relevancy and need.

ConnectED believes that there are leaders and solutions waiting at the local level to act as catalysts for improved education. ConnectED nurtures these resources by identifying, developing and supporting local leaders to engage their communities to design and implement projects that improve access, quality and/or relevancy of education. Our model follows a phased program approach:

Phase 1: Local Recruitment: We work in partnership with other community-based organizations to identify and select local education leaders, from rural communities, to serve as Fellows.

Phase 2: Community Assessment: We support our Fellows in engaging key stakeholders (students, parents and teachers) to identify critical education challenges in their community.

Phase 3: Project Development/Design: We collaborate closely with Fellows in developing project work plans, setting goals, and designing responsive and relevant education projects that improve access, quality and/or relevancy of education.

Phase 4: Capacity Building and Leadership Development: We facilitate group training workshops and ongoing individual mentorship for our Fellows to develop their skills in community leadership, project management and use of technology.

Phase 5: Project Implementation: Together with Fellows, local partners, and community stakeholders, we pilot and manage local and small-scale education initiatives. During this time we focus on building key alliances between our Fellows and relevant local/international public and private partners.

Phase 6: Monitoring, Evaluation, Learning and Scaling: We monitor and evaluate the outcomes of projects managed by our Fellows. This is a learning experience and so the insights gained are critically important. We share them with our network and use the knowledge to scale our work to new areas.

ConnectED supports its Fellows via access to technology, training, mentorship and capital. Fellows receive structured, in-person, group trainings with their peer Fellows on key topics such as: leadership, community assessments, project design and implementation, and measuring education impact and project sustainability. These skills serve the immediate needs of the education sector in their community and have a benefit many times larger for themselves. ConnectED also supports each of its Fellows remotely to provide additional trainings and ongoing mentorship.

To support the virtual aspect of the Fellowship, Fellows receive tablets to access the G-Suite cloud platform, eLearning materials, instructional videos via Youtube, and other tools and open education resources that are applicable to their projects. Communication applications such as Zoom and WhatsApp are utilized to convene virtual group trainings and to support Fellows individually as they monitor, refine, and even replicate their projects. 

Our solution adapts a traditional but proven approach that provides leadership opportunities to aspiring local changemakers whose potential and ideas are not always acknowledged or who lack the means to turn their ideas into actionable steps.

We then augment our model by:

1. Focusing on local education leaders that reside in rural communities in Central America.

2. Integrating applicable eLearning technologies and resources to incorporate technology into our solution to stimulate development and contribute to creating greater connectivity and opportunities for remote communities.

3. Promoting peer-to-peer dialogue and exchange between Fellows from different communities to share challenges and innovations for improved education.

4. Focusing our Fellows projects on three key areas within education to improve access, quality and/or relevance of education in both the formal and informal education space.

5. Supporting our Fellows to engage their communities in the design and implementation of projects via community assessments and key focus groups with students, parents and teachers from the community.

6. Building communication and partnerships between Community-Based-Organizations that are working to improve education within a region so there can be greater knowledge sharing around varied programming, needs, solutions etc that can support regional/national dialogue and best management practices.

ConnectED strongly believes that IF education leaders are empowered to effect change through capacity development and resource provision THEN they can improve access, quality and relevance of formal and non-formal education in their community WHICH WILL RESULT IN better learning outcomes and prospects for youth in the most vulnerable communities across Central America, AND ADDITIONALLY WILL provide local education leaders with the opportunity to build skills and gain relevant experiences to expand their own livelihood prospects.

In our staff’s collective experience in Central America, we have seen many creative and resilient catalysts for education change. However, without the necessary resources and support systems their ideas often remain unrealized.

Since welcoming our first cohort of Fellows in 2015, Fellows have created new primary schools, accredited Computer Literacy training for students and teachers, open source digital literacy training for educators, and more. The education impacts of their projects have been cumulative year after year. In addition, Fellows have increased their confidence, leadership and project management skills which serve themselves and their communities long-term. With these new found skills many Fellows have continued to implement projects, after the Fellowship, that address other pressing community needs outside of education.

From our early years in Nicaragua, we found that each Fellow’s project impacts, on average, the lives of 100 students, improve the skills of 10 teachers, and strengthens the operations of one school. These benefits are cumulative each year thereinafter.

ConnectED and our Fellows in Nicaragua have improved education outcomes in 24 communities. We have trained more than 100 teachers, improved educational access and relevance for 12 schools, and ultimately served more than 2,500 students.

We expect this number to rise as we continue expanding in Nicaragua and train new cohorts of Fellows in Guatemala, which we started in October 2019. By end of 2020, we aim to empower our current cohort of 7 Fellows in Guatemala, which will create positive educational outcomes for a minimum of 700 students, 70 teachers, and 7 schools just this year.

Between 2020-2025, we envision working towards an enhanced Fellows Program that has the potential to be scaled outside Guatemala and Nicaragua. We project building capacity for 100 Fellows -- providing enhanced access to, quality, and relevant education for a minimum of 10,000 students, 1,000 teachers, and 100 schools (and their staff) - each with realized annual cumulative benefits.

ConnectED’s mission is to improve access, quality, and relevance of education for youth in rural Central America, which strongly aligns to the goals of SDG 4. From 2020-2025, we will grow our cohort of Fellows across the region and incorporate new approaches/technologies so we can adapt to new contexts and modernize local education systems.

This year, we are focused on:

1) Proving our model further by piloting it with a new cohort of Fellows in Guatemala so we can evaluate our impact in two Country contexts (Guatemala and Nicaragua).

2) Building partnerships for greater scale and financial sustainability so our Fellows Model can benefit a greater number of communities/regions.

3) Supporting past Fellows to scale their initiatives to other communities that can benefit from their proven projects.

Over the next five years, we aim to build a strong network of Fellows within Central America who can intensify our model’s impact. The network will serve as an avenue for Fellows to share their experiences and lessons learned. This participatory knowledge-sharing platform will also function as a collection of grassroots solutions from which different communities in other countries can draw ideas from. As we grow this network of education leaders, we contribute to the development of local and international sectors.

Simultaneously, ConnectED will create a network of CBOs, which are instrumental in nominating Fellows within the communities where they work. Their assistance and endorsements will help us scale to new areas and promote a culture of inclusive and equitable lifelong learning.

Central America’s education sector cannot progress due to persistent obstacles including high rates of poverty, unemployment, mass immigration, and even violence. The social, economic, and political barriers directly affect our program work now and will do so in the next five years, specifically:

1. Political barriers: Political turmoil, which is widespread in Central America, in one or more countries of operation, remains to be one of the biggest threats to our work and the education sector as a whole. This prevents promising top-down education solutions from taking effect and reaching communities with the greatest needs. It can also prevent us from entering a community and scaling our program.
2. Security barriers: In remote and poverty-stricken areas, where security is lacking, theft and acts of violence are more common. This places our Fellows and staff at risk.
3. Economic barriers: While Central American countries are moving up the economic development ladder, the lack of resources (e.g., infrastructure, connectivity) in rural areas where we work can slow down our program work.
4. Organizational barriers: Due to social, economic, and political instability, we fear missing our targets due to poor performance or partners withdrawing their support.
5. Financial barriers: Our investments in fundraising efforts may lead to minimal returns and fail to gather the needed funding for our implementation and scaling efforts.

We believe that our grassroots development approach enhanced with digital and eLearning learning tools can help address many of these social, economic, and political risks. Leveraging digital technologies, we can deliver our training and mentorship online, reducing the need for Fellows and staff to travel. Additionally, breaking education barriers from the bottom-up can support top-down education reforms that may take time to manifest. Our Fellows’ solutions are rooted in local contexts and make use of resources available within the communities.

We will also implement the following measures to ensure our program work runs smoothly:

1. Implementing a security strategy: To ensure the safety of our Fellows and staff, we developed evacuation protocols, insurance schemes, and even employ security measures as relevant.
2. Adapting to local situations to increase organizational effectiveness: Our human resources, recruitment, and crisis management policies are aligned with international NGO standards. We also regularly review the progress of our work against our goals and assess them based on the situation on the ground.
3. Building partnerships based on best practices and trust: We assess all potential partners based on a formal criteria. We will openly communicate with our partners, letting them know of any issues and plans to resolve them.
4. Building a pipeline of donors: We work with fundraising consultants to build a pipeline of philanthropic foundations, corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives, high-net-worth individuals, and other donors. We support Fellows by connecting them to CBOs who can provide their projects with needed resources and funding.

Founded in 2013, ConnectED currently works in two countries with high levels of poverty and poor educational outcomes.

In 2015, we welcomed our first cohort of Fellows in Nicaragua following consultations with education, community, and government partners. With our guidance, Fellows launched projects that built schools and infrastructure as well as innovations like computer literacy training courses and certifications, open resource training resources for teachers, and computer labs for school staff in their locales. Since then, we have grown strong relationships with over 20 rural communities throughout the northern, central, and southern regions, reaching more than 2,500 people.

We realized how technology helped accelerate our impact in Nicaragua and sought to implement a stronger Fellows Program to transform the local education sector at a more efficient pace. In 2019, we began working in Guatemala using best practices from Nicaragua. As of April 2020, our first group of Fellows are preparing to launch promising solutions to education challenges in their communities including: the creation of a computer center and agri-based curriculum in a farming community; a digital training platform for skills like baking, sewing, and carpentry; and a mobile cinema project that brings education videos to small neighborhoods.  

Additionally, we’ve received interest from prospective partners from Honduras, El Salvador, and Costa Rica who want to nominate Fellows and have them implement solutions in their communities. Moving forward, we seek to introduce a more refined, technology-driven Fellows Program to these countries guided by our experiences in Nicaragua and Guatemala.

ConnectED has 2 full-time staff and multiple consultants across the US and Central America who support our strategy development, programming, accounting, and development.

Based in the US, our CEO and Co-Founder Sooni Gillett heads the organization. She leads financial management, governance, over-all strategy and develops resources for program delivery.
 
Our Program Director, Isa LaPorte, leads our Nicaragua- and Guatemala-based operations and works directly with Fellows and community partners. She facilitates in-person training workshops for Fellows with our Strategy Consultants and collaborates with partners to provide mentorship to our Fellows.

Our CEO Sooni’s areas of expertise include educational programming, nonprofit administration, and community development. Since 2013, she has developed/implemented ConnectED’s program across Nicaragua, working on projects with educators and specialists from various universities, such as the National Autonomous University of Nicaragua (UNAN), University of Texas San Antonio, and San Diego State University. Prior to ConnectED, she worked with under-served farming communities in the Bay Area, Asia and Africa in her roles at the Resource Conservation District and the Postharvest Technology Research Center. She graduated with a Master’s degree in Ecology and International Development at the University of California, Davis.  

She leads ConnectED with support from our Program Director Isa, who has over two decades’ experience in stakeholder and community engagement, corporate social responsibility, and social impact strategies across Latin America. She has a Master’s degree in International Affairs and a Bachelor’s degree in Sociology from the Central American University in Nicaragua.  

Our team is also supported by our Co-Founder Cally Houck, who is a member of our Board of Directors. The veteran lawyer, with over 20 years’ experience, supports Sooni and Isa in major strategic decisions.  

The rest of ConnectED’s team members have diverse specializations, including research, program design, strategic planning, resource development, storytelling, social media, and fundraising.

ConnectED is a team of individuals who are deeply and equally passionate about creating an inclusive and equitable lifelong learning environment for all. Our core team brings in 20 years of combined experience in international education, community development, and project management.

ConnectED has a multisectoral support system in Central America. We strive to build collaborative meaningful partnerships that achieve greater education impact by working together.

In Guatemala/Nicaragua we partner with other education Community Based Organizations that serve rural communities within specific regions of the Country. In Guatemala, we collaborate with SERES, Los Patojos and Mundo Possible. These partnerships are instrumental in helping us to identify new prospective Fellows that reside within the regions/communities where they work.

We are also working with other partners beyond the community levels, including government, nonprofits, and academic institutions. In Nicaragua, we work with UNAN Managua and the Nicaragua’s Ministry of Education. In the USA, we collaborate closely with the Middlebury Institute of International Studies to engage Graduate Students to support our Fellows.

Lastly, we are part of the Open Education Consortium in Latin America, which promotes the expansion of Open Education Resource systems and efforts in the region. Their members provide us technical support and new partners to help us fulfill our mission.  

As we scale and establish our presence in more communities, we envision our multisectoral partnerships to expand,  boosting the capacity of all Fellows and of ConnectED as we steer the program to success.

Our Fellows Program catalyzes local education in Central America selecting local leaders to make change in their own communities . Our target customers are passionate individuals— students, teachers, and education professionals, —who demonstrate a strong desire to elevate local education standards.  

The Fellows undergo year-long training and mentorship delivered through modern devices and eLearning tools. This improves their own prospects as individuals through newly-acquired technical and soft skills, access to digital tools, and a wider professional network, which are critical for employability in the modern economy.    

Beyond this, Fellows gain the capacity to have a benefit many times larger than themselves. As local change agents, they serve as long-term resources for communities to improve accessibility, quality, and relevance of education at the local level, contributing to greater collective capacity.  

Fellows also mobilize different actors including community members and CBOs, who collectively invest resources in local programs they all agree to support. These resources are a combination of funds, skills, knowledge and in-kind support such as venues, materials and time.  

The program is funded through three principle strategies; core administrative operations are resourced through the interest generated from an endowment account. Training and program staff are funded via grants and fellow projects are funded by supportive individuals. Since the core funding is largely covered, for each incremental increase in revenue the number of fellows and impact is scaled rapidly, as it take $10,000 to fund each fellow's training and project costs.

ConnectED currently funds its program from interest generated from an endowment account and support from private/public donors and supporters, especially in the US and countries with relevant funding opportunities. Our fundraising strategies include:  

• At least 25% of our revenue from high-net-worth individuals whom are dedicated to social impact through education;
• At least 50% of our revenue through Foundations and Intergovernmental Agencies focused on Central America;
• At least 5-10% of our revenue through CSR partnerships in Central America and the USA;
• Sustain the majority of our core administrative functions from annual investment returns, meaning most fundraising supports programmatic functions; and
• Encourage and mobilize local in-kind resources in the communities in which we work In addition to enhancing our financial sustainability, this strategy will help establish our Fellows Program as an effective solution to education challenges in Central America. It may also add new and effective components to our Fellows Program and help us reach new locations and partners. A steady network of partners will also help us secure financial resources for existing Fellows’ initiatives, enabling them to create enduring impact within and beyond their communities.

We are applying to the TPrize Challenge because we firmly believe our solution is scalable, sustainable and game-changing. The TPrize will enable us to scale through funding resources, provide us with greater visibility and new partnerships within the education/development sector, both locally and internationally. It will also change the situation for thousands through the capacity we build in our fellow communities to make the difference to someone’s choice to migrate from their country or to stay and employ their skills. 

ConnectED is a still a young organization that can benefit from the guidance experts at MIT Solve and other experts behind the TPrize Challenge. We will enhance our organizational capacity, and with MIT Solve, employ learning technologies to make the most of our investments in our fellows. The funding and resources we can gain from this opportunity can also help us improve our model, adapt it to different Central American contexts, and help us each our 5-year goals of improving access, quality and relevance of education in 100 schools, with 1,000 teachers, and impacting the 10,000 learners.

At this stage in our development we would like to partner with incubators, funders, NGOs, and Universities to help in the execution of our model. Specifically, we would love connections to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Draper Richard Kaplan Foundation, Inter-American Foundation, Hewlett Foundation, World Bank, Inter-American Foundation, CISCO, and USAID. Partners would include Save The Children, UNICEF, UNESCO, and UNDP.