Let´s Teach Together

There are learning breaches that Salvadoran youth and children experience, that do not allow them to develop skills, affect their psychosocial well-being and limit their opportunities for personal improvement. We group these learning breaches in two main categories:

• Technological breaches. These are created by the lack of technological resources, like a computer or a smartphone, and the lack of access to the internet and their resources. In El Salvador, 1 of 2 students have this technological gap.

• Educational breaches. This breach is defined by the lack of training, competences and time of the educators. The educational material includes methodological guides, didactic letters, reading material and evaluations. In El Salvador, it takes around 1 hour by day for teachers to create the educational materials.

As well we define 5 causes that have intensified the impact of the two breaches.

• Covid19 pandemic. It causes the students to be unable to attend face-to-face classes, so they have to take classes from home.

• Communities in conflict situations. The families in these communities have movement restrictions, and young people and children are often unable to attend face-to-face classes. The psychosocial well-being of young people in these communities is often greatly affected

• Families in poverty. The resources of families in poverty are mainly directed to other needs and not to education. Likewise, the young people of these families usually stop studying when the economic situation of the family worsens, causing delays in their educational progress.

• Rural communities. These are the communities with the least access to technological resources, so students use printed materials, which are often outdated, thus deteriorating the quality of their learning.

• Visual, hearing and motor disabilities. Traditional educational materials are not suitable for teaching people with disabilities, so there is a great lack of opportunities for these students.

Currently, the Ministry of Education of El Salvador has a policy not to fail any student, but for this the student must have attended the classes or have completed all the study guides, which is not possible for students with technological gaps or if has any of the aggravating causes that do not allow them to spend time studying. Still, a student who fails the school grade has also not learned what is necessary to advance and will start the next grade without the required skills, which will further affect his or her education.

On the other hand, the lack of face-to-face classes does not allow the teacher to carry out psychological monitoring of his students to determine personal and family problems that should be attended to by an expert. Currently, the teacher is limited to virtual channels to keep a limited follow-up of students with access to virtual educational resources.

In conclusion, there are a variety of causes and gaps that do not allow children and young people to have adequate educational materials for their reality, that take into account their limitations and that allow them to learn according to their needs. All this aggravated by the deterioration of their relationships with their classmates, but mainly with their teachers.

Our solution is based on the development and implementation of a digital platform that facilitates the work of teachers in El Salvador while contributing to closing gaps in underserved youth between the ages of 7 and 15 years. This platform will allow teachers to perform the following functions:

1. Obtain the didactic guides (including exams) and educational materials in the appropriate formats for regular students and students affected by technological and educational gaps, and who suffer from aggravating situations in their environment, family and disabilities. Among the materials to be obtained are:

   1. Virtual guides (adapted for people with visual, hearing and motor disabilities).

   2. Guides to print (adapted for people with hearing and motor disabilities).

   3. Educational material for virtual classes.

   4. Educational material in mp3 audio format.

   5. Online exams (adapted for people with visual, hearing and motor disabilities).

   6. Printed exams (adapted for people with hearing and motor disabilities).

   7. Virtual exams (adapted to people with hearing and motor disabilities).

   8. Guide to oral exams.

The materials will be created by a group of expert teachers and will be open to the public for review. On the other hand, for a teacher to be able to use the different materials, she must be adequately trained through the courses that the platform will facilitate. Finally, by obtaining resources through the platform, teachers will be saving 1 hour a day on their homework.

1. Facilitate the psychological monitoring of students through a series of indicators of psychological detriment, which will be monitored by the teacher and may be incorporated into all formats of educational materials. Three types of indicators are defined according to their evaluation and monitoring modality:

   1. Global indicators. Which are measured on the regular teaching dynamics of the teacher. These indicators are the abrupt decrease in academic performance, violent reaction to a rule, low mood in happy moments, among others.

   2. Relative indicators. These are incorporated as questions and cases within the students' assignments and exams, in such a way that the student does not perceive the control questions. This indicator is mainly aimed at young people over 10 years of age.

   3. Punctual indicators. These are exams and tests designed exclusively to assess the emotional, family and psychological state of the student. This indicator is aimed at young people under 10 years of age.

Teachers will be trained to keep track of the indicators, as well as the process to measure the last two indicators, which will be provided within the platform's educational material.

1. Facilitate evaluation tasks, which are multiplied by having several different formats for students of the same grade, since it requires evaluating each of the different formats. Therefore, the platform will provide the following two services to facilitate the qualification of exams.

   1. Translation of written exams into digital format through AI, which allows the teacher to obtain a text file from the photo or scan of the printed pages.

   2. Writing of voice audios to text format, so that the teacher can have the written version of the oral exams in the same way.

Our impact is perceived directly by teachers in El Salvador, the platform provides the following services:

• Teachers will be able to obtain methodological guides, class materials and exams in different formats (virtual, audio, visual and written) from the platform.

• By not having to create materials, teachers save 1 hour a day.

• Teachers will have the facility to identify the psychological state of students through global, relative and specific indicators, which will support their management of identifying cases of students who need psychological help.

• Teachers will have tools that allow them to convert the different exam formats to the virtual format, reducing their revision tasks.

• Training and courses to obtain the skills to use the different formats of educational materials.

On the other hand, the impact of the platform is also perceived by students in El Salvador in the following way:

• Students will have material adapted to their reality, which covers the same content as their classmates and will be appropriate to their learning level.

• Young underserved by the educational system will now be included in normal teaching activities.

• Students with failing or pending grades will have material according to their accelerated learning needs.

• All of this will expand development opportunities for underserved youth and will increase their chances for a better future.

We have been working with Activate for El Salvador since 2016 because from a very young age we began to get involved in volunteer projects, either in non-governmental organizations or in our community. That is why, when we went to university, we realized the incredible impact that an organization of young people for young people could have, in which the fulfillment of our rights was guaranteed.

That is why, as we got organized, we realized that there were more young people interested in changing reality just like us. In this way, throughout our experience, we have managed to develop, not only what we have learned in our career, but we have also specialized in social project issues, we have learned about issues of technology, design, among others, the result of which has thanks to our daily interaction with a multidisciplinary team.

In this way, we consider that SOLVE is a challenge that can support us to continue growing as leaders because many times we are biased by the reality that surrounds us and we think we fully understand it, but, by being part of this opportunity and having a team of experts advising us to make this new initiative grow, we are completely sure that we will give 100% dedication so that it turns out in the best way because it not only responds to the needs of the vulnerable sectors with whom we already work but also that we can to be a bridge so that later on other young people who are just starting to work with us can create and apply for their initiatives.

We truly believe that changing our reality largely depends on youth and that is why we love to constantly get involved and get to know reality through different projects and, when evaluating the SOLVE opportunity, we feel very excited because we consider that, even if we receive a monetary contribution, we will have the support of a team with much more experience that can provide us with the mentoring and contacts necessary to improve our initiative, and even provide us with better advice on the projects that are developed in other countries in benefit of the vulnerable groups with whom we already work, which are people with disabilities, street children and people in poverty in general.

First of all, we are interested in SOLVE because this opportunity is a key to guaranteeing the best learning from best coaches, mentors and others receiving feedback that will improve our initiative from other people around the world. We mainly love the idea of working on creating and developing alliances with other social initiatives around the world that might have a better perspective on education. 

We believe that this opportunity is essential for Let´s Teach Together to become more known among teachers and educational centers that will be willing to improve quality education for students so that they can take advantage of the opportunity to learn according to their needs. That is something very difficult currently in our country because many of us or our friends and family do not have the same access to even basic resources to attend school.

As a team, it has been very difficult for us to grow in an environment in which you do not have access to the same quality education and other opportunities that people with high incomes normally have, thanks to the support of our families and some scholarship opportunities we have been growing and now want to give back part of what we have received.

So, that's why, our main expectation from SOLVE is to be able to  innovate and empower education in our country and incluide all those children and youth that are invisible in this moment because they might have a disability, might be in a street situation, etc. All those people that are left at this moment are the same people that we have been working with in Actívate por El Salvador and other NGO´s that we have founded or worked with.

Specifically with our Let´s teach together! proposal, by being part of this process we hope to increase the scope of our education material and even have the opportunity to create another type of content that can be built together with other young leaders and teachers in order to keep improving the access to education according to the needs of even more vulnerable groups.

As well, thanks to other experiences that we have been working with inclusive initiatives here in El Salvador, as been in Pasitos por El Salvador project,  which is the first school in our country for children in street situation and Emprendiendo con Capacidad, which is as well the first initiative of incubator for entrepreneurs doe people with disabilities, we have realized these are the most vulnerable and invisible groups and we think is time to change this situation, considering that we know a lot of young people that are every time most compromise with solutioning this problematic.

From this, our passion for what I do has grown more and more, which is why we have decided to start with this new initiative and we believe that SOLVE will allow us to better criticize reality from a proactive point of view.

Likewise, we hope to be able to exchange ideas, experiences, and knowledge with other young people with whom we can develop new

initiatives and/or integrate the current ones that we have in Actívate por El Salvador, which is a young initiative that we have since 

 years ago.

Finally, we would like to connect with people around the world because we also have an entrepreneurship program about inclusive tourism called  ̈La Vuelta al Mundo ̈. So, meeting more people will also help us to have more social impact with this initiative that challenges conventional tourism.

In El Salvador, actions to incorporate underserved youth have been the sole responsibility of teachers, who through workshops, the materials they can get and their limited time, make efforts to teach all their students in the best possible way. The main resource that has been provided to teachers by the state has been training and workshops, however, although these actions allow them to obtain new skills and tools, they also increase their work, so that over time the practices learned do not become sustainable.

Instead, our solution is based on a radical change in the development of educational material and centralizes this process in a group of expert teachers, in the same way that it allows collaboration and feedback on the materials created. All of this takes advantage of the technologies available to facilitate the tasks of the teacher, providing more time to carry out their work as an educator. While our solution spans grades 1-9, we hope that the success of our model can be used as a foundation for new solutions geared toward underserved older youth, including college.

On the other hand, including young people with disabilities, with economic limitations and with social limitations, within groups of regular students is the second major paradigm shift that our solution proposes. Historically in El Salvador, these young people are separated as a group of different people who need special treatment, however, including them within regular spaces brings benefits to both them and their peers. The theme of inclusion has already been developed by our organization before, and we hope that inclusion can be adopted and taught to other social spheres.

Finally, incorporating AI tools for educational processes is one of our technological bets that represents a new application for such technology. Our team has identified educational processes where AI can generate benefits when it's used, but we also expect new applications that can be added to this list of technological changes over educational processes.

Therefore, our impact objectives are as follows:

Impact goal for next year.

• Improve the school completion rate by incorporating 54 underserved students into regular classes (3 schools, 2 underserved students per grade on average).

• Lift administrative burdens on educators by having on average 2 educational materials downloaded weekly by teachers.

• Improve quality education through training 27 teachers in the use of the platform.

Impact goal for next five year.

• Improve the school completion rate by incorporating 900 underserved students into regular classes (50 schools, 2 underserved students per grade on average).

• Lift administrative burdens on educators by having on average 2 educational materials downloaded weekly by teachers.

• Improve quality education through training 450 teachers in the use of the platform.

Our impact objectives are based on the following indicators:

• Number of neglected students who were incorporated into regular classes. This indicator shows us how much we are impacting the lives of young people and will be measured through reports from teachers, who will see an increase in the number of students they serve.

• Average number of educational material downloaded weekly by teachers registered on the platform. This indicator will show us how useful our services have been for teachers' classes. Also, by multiplying it by the time they invest in creating the material themselves, we will have a new indicator of time saved.

• Number of teachers trained in the use of the platform and number of schools with 100% of their teaching staff trained. In this way we will measure the acceptance of the platform in the country's educational system.

Theory of change.

Activities.

• Train teachers in the use of the platform.

• Train teachers in the use of different formats of educational material.

• Train teachers in the psychological monitoring of students.

• Create a team of expert teachers to create content in different formats.

• Developing a platform.

The creation of products is directly linked to the activities as it is the result of completing them.

Products. 

• Group of teachers trained in platform, monitoring and materials.

• Team of expert teachers.

• Platform.

When conducting interviews with teachers, they mentioned that they spend an average of 1 hour a day on didactic planning activities, and they also confirmed that they were willing to use material already created to teach their classes. On the other hand, they commented that before contacting the student they rely on the school to contact the parents. Finally, they said that within each school there is generally only one teacher trained in psychological monitoring issues and that they would be willing to take measures to expand monitoring coverage.

Short term results.

• Teachers save at least 1 hour a day of work.

• First cases of psychological intervention needs identified.

• Teachers and the school contact parents of neglected youth.

Most of the teachers confirmed that they would be willing to diversify their skills in order to provide a good educational service to their students. On the other hand, after contacting the parents of underserved youth and reaching agreements with them, the youth should join regular classes.

Medium-term results.

• Teachers save at least 1 hour and a half a day of work.

• New underserved youth incorporated into regular classes.

By saving time and more qualified teachers, the quality of education improves. Also, by having the right material and a trained teacher, underserved young people can study and complete their homework, so everything increases the possibility of graduating from the year.

Impact.

• Teachers with less administrative burden and with the ability to educate young people who were previously neglected.

• Underserved youth completing academic degrees and catching up with the generation of students their age.

We have two core technologies powering our solution.

First, the platform is based on an app for mobile and computers. The material and guides will be stored on this platform, and they will also be cataloged for easy access by teachers. The platform will host AI services, facilitate training for teachers and track psychological cases discovered.

Second, we have two services provided by AI located in the platform. We have an image recognition AI that brings translation of the words, numbers and elements of a document written by hand; and, we have a voice recognition AI that translates the voice into text documents. Both of the AI will be also in charge of some of the psychological indicators and will give insights to the teacher about the mental health of the student.

Also, we have the use of mp3 players (even in old cell phones) as a secondary technology in our project. This allows us to take advantage of the resources available in the communities to intelligently incorporate them into our solution.

Our team in the organization is made up of a wide diversity of young people. Currently in Activate for El Salvador, and in conjunction with other initiatives, we work with volunteers with disabilities due to our experience working with this population and, by being part of a volunteer network, we are training other organizations on issues of inclusion Social.

On the other hand, in our organization, most of the team of leaders are women because opportunities are provided in an equitable manner. In this very specific aspect, with our experience, we consider that as an organization that is very open to the leadership of these young people, women, being one of the vulnerable groups, make the most of these spaces to be able to grow both personally and professionally and that has a high impact on our society.

On the other hand, since we have also developed an alliance with Pasitos por El Salvador, the first school for street children, we have also been able to work with young people who offer their time despite being in this situation. Therefore, our way of working volunteering is from the transformational side and not from the welfare point of view because we believe that we can make a positive impact on a daily basis from wherever we are and regardless of the resources we have

Considering the above, by being selected for this initiative, we are greatly interested in replicating this process with our other young people so that they are also capable of creating initiatives that they consider also respond to their needs, likewise, we hope that they are capable of replicate it with other young people so that together we can grow and improve our reality.

We have two mainly beneficiary segments, teachers and underserved students. We provide to teachers with educational material, with a service to psychological monitoring of students, and with a service to facilitate administrative tasks for teachers; we provide this by our platform (app and website). Teachers use our products and services to save their time and to ensure that they can teach all of their students regardless of their limitations. On the other hand, we provide connection and Integration to underserved students through our platform. The students prefer our solution because it satisfies their necessities of interacting with other people at the same level.

Our solution has three main sources of income that ensure its sustainability. In the first place, there are the services and contracts that the government can make us, since this is the entity in charge of providing education to the population, an approach is sought so that the solution can be developed cooperatively, likewise, the government, and mainly the Ministry of Education is the main stakeholder for the implementation of our solution. Secondly, as an NGO, we will look for private donors interested in improving the quality of education in the country and closing the gaps in student neglect. In the end, the grants for social projects and programs will help us during different phases of the solution, and become a income with strong potential.

In September 2021, Activate for El Salvador won second place in the national youth award in the social work category, obtaining resources from the government of El Salvador to continue implementing social projects. On the other hand, Activate has received small donations from private entities for volunteer activities. Finally, in 2022, Activate will finish its 2-year legalization process and will be able to opt for larger donations, likewise, it will be able to sign service contracts on behalf of the NGO, either with the government or with private entities, which is expected to lead to next level to our organization.