Submitted
Re-engaging Learners

Digital learning territories

Team Leader
Amapola Rangel
Solution Overview & Team Lead Details
Our Organization
Fondo para la Paz
What is the name of your solution?
Digital learning territories
Provide a one-line summary of your solution.
Providing children ages 9-12 with tools to use techology as a learning tool, to bridge the tech and digital literacy gap.
Film your elevator pitch.
What specific problem are you solving?

In Mexico, the COVID-19 pandemic not only highlighted the socio-economic inequalities in access to healthcare that were experienced by most rural and indigenous communities but also exacerbated the existing gaps related to education, as well as the use of and access to Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). The latter is mainly associated with the lack of infrastructure, due to the lower coverage of telecommunications services in rural areas. In 2018, the state of Oaxaca had 27.1% of its population with educational backwardness, occupying 2nd place among the 32 states for their levels of this deficiency. These figures show that 13.53% of the population aged 15 and over are illiterate, compared to 5.49% at the national level; 51.38% of the population aged 15 and over in the state do not have completed basic education, compared to 35.29% at the national level. Likewise, according to the ICT Development Index, the states of Chiapas, Oaxaca, Guerrero and Veracruz have the lowest level of access to ICTs at the national level (SIU, 2020), the same states that have the highest rates of indigenous people living in poverty and extreme poverty.

The above data illustrates the difficulties that many children in rural communities still face today in continuing virtual education. In this sense, the insertion of ICTs that are within the reach of communities can be a way to address educational inequality and encourage children in rural contexts to relate to their environment and their learning in a new way, strengthening knowledge and learning that allow them to know and exercise their rights within their communities.

What is your solution?

Digital learning territories is a program designed to provide children from ages 9 to 13 a new way of re-engaging with learning process in the middle and moving forward from the COVID-19 pandemic. Through the use of tablets as technological tools, they explore their communities, their history, and reinforce topics learned at school. The program guides participants through four modules of learning, each with a particular project to be completed, that will together amount to the creation of a time capsule that contains a snapshot of their communities at the moment of creation. Through this exploration process, each participant must use creativity and resourcefulness to research each prompt and integrate activities through the tablet with pictures, videos, and abilities related to uploading documents to the cloud, and participating in conversations through videoconferencing platforms. 

Each participant has a volunteer tutor that follows their progress and makes sure to enable strategies to improve participation or solve doubts about the contents of the program. They meet via video conference platforms, which helps strengthen abilities related to the use of diverse platforms. 

The solution aims to re-engage children in their community life, engage in research activities with their peers and the elders of the community, to enhace skills, socialization processes in an effort to re-imagine rural education in the face of inequality that COVID-19 revealed.

Who does your solution serve, and in what ways will the solution impact their lives?

The project will impact the lives of children with existing structural disadvatages in rural and indigenous communities from 3 regions of Oaxaca, Mexico. Students in these areas hardly receive education through the use of technology, unlike their peers in urban schools, which further increases the gap between the two groups. The project is designed as an educational program with the possibility of being replicated and scaled up, seeking adaptability to each context and continuous evaluation so that the lessons learned are relevant to the children involved. Carrying out pedagogical strategies based on learning-by-doing that attend to the needs of children in these contexts is essential for their formation as active and participatory agents in their communities. The development of a playful and effective technological tool for the types of devices that are most relevant in these rural contexts will be useful for the self-directed learning of children who do not have access to this information in their traditional schools or curricula. Also, the active participation of project learning will lead them to have incidences and practical exercises that will lead them to have a particular involvement with the community, applying their knowledge and integrating various themes into the social life of their communities.

How are you and your team well-positioned to deliver this solution?

Fondo para la Paz is an organization composed by people with diverse backgrounds and expertise. Each region has a team of people from the communities or region, so that the experience of locally designed projects comes directly from people who understand and live the context, and is able to prioritize what is important in each community through participatory planning processes. There is another team, in the Oaxaca office, with over 18 years of experience in community development and in working closely with the communities the project aims to impact. In the central offices in Mexico City, the team of project managers is integrated by individuals with ample experience in working with rural and indigenous communities, developing projects with youth and technology, and coordinating teams from varied contexts.  

Which dimension of the Challenge does your solution most closely address?
  • Enable personalized learning and individualized instruction for learners who are most at risk for disengagement and school drop-out
Where our solution team is headquartered or located:
Oaxaca, Oax., México
Our solution's stage of development:
  • Pilot
How many people does your solution currently serve?
72
Why are you applying to Solve?

The program and network that Solve provides are essential to the improvement and continuation of the project because the pilot implementation now requires feedback and improvements. Our program is designed to be adaptable and scalable, all with the necessary adjustments that can be exchanged and learned through the knowledge that other Solve participants and its network of experts can provide. The project will benefit from being part of a group interested in community-based solutions to global challenges. 

In which of the following areas do you most need partners or support?
  • Technology (e.g. software or hardware, web development/design, data analysis, etc.)
Who is the Team Lead for your solution?
Magali Jauregui
More About Your Solution
Your Team
Your Business Model & Funding
Solution Team:
Amapola Rangel
Amapola Rangel
Development Project Manager