Suuralairua

Mission: The Suuralairua Library is a non-profit program that seeks to provide dignified educational access to Wayúu communities and protect the Wayuunaiki language, while pursuing the sustainable development goals of quality education and poverty alleviation. Suuralairua seeks to guarantee and promote the training of Wayúu children leaders through education in different fields of knowledge, reducing illiteracy.

Vision: To train more than 1,000 Wayúu children and young entrepreneurs in their community by 2024, preserving their cultural legacy and mother tongue, ensuring that they have access to quality education and seeking strategies that allow us to improve the quality of life of the community in search of sustainable development and comprehensive training aimed at community advancement. Also, to replicate the project in other indigenous communities in the country, which suffer similar difficulties.

More Context:

Suuralairua (roots in Wayuunaiki) is the search for vindication and respect for Colombian indigenous cultures and languages, a call for the recognition of their existence and infinite value. Bringing a training space to the communities and preserving a language as beautiful and as threatened as Wayuunaiki, which according to the United Nations, by 2019, was spoken by only 600. Sadly, Wayuunaiki is not only threatened by the low rate of native speakers, but also by the high illiteracy rates and the deficient educational system of the region, all of which constitutes a very high risk for the cultural future of the Wayuunaiki people, since the oral tradition of its history, as well as its social configuration and belief system could disappear along with the language, the backbone of the cultures and its main form of transmission.

Despite being a culture full of art and colors, the opportunities for social progress that can be seen for the inhabitants of the region are not very hopeful, and we saw a bridge working from education, since children are the most affected by this problem: the difficulty of access to education in conditions of safety and dignity, ostensibly limiting development, a fact that is reflected in journeys of more than three hours to the nearest schools, in most cases, under food deficiency. We want to reduce the dizzying educational and development gap between communities and urban communities.
This project has shown us the effectiveness of a model of community self-management and female leadership, which has allowed us to work hand in hand with the community and keep the project alive, as well as ensure its continuity through various economic strategies and the constant support of a beautiful group of donors and sponsors, who help us keep the library and various educational programs in optimal operating conditions and have constant educational materials.

• Create and develop educational and cultural growth programs, together with the teaching community 
• Manage and optimize the management of available resources from donations received
• Develop and execute the annual budget management plan 
• Coordinate the different areas, supervising the execution of the proposed projects, together with the team, the methodological tools to improve the management of the organization. 
• Build and maintain institutional and political relationships to reach cooperation agreements.
•  Create marketing and awareness campaigns to communicate the program
• Design evaluation mechanisms to measure the impact of the programs

According to the specialty and development approach of each front of the project. The team would be organizing a backlog, with a prioritization and delegation matrix. To this would be added a backup of 10 volunteers that we have ready to support the achievement of these objectives.

Library satellite services, where collections, processes and services circulate through the children of the community themselves

• Traveling libraries solve several problems in communities, Firstly, limited or, in many cases, no access to books and educational resources. Illiteracy in different population groups in the mother tongue, which is lost every day due to lack of access to literary and academic resources in their own language and in Spanish. We also seek to break the barrier of few spaces for reading and continuous learning by taking books to remote places. We also want to combat the lack of leadership and drive to promote. 

Under the coverage of the RNBP in Colombia, the model we carry is to carry out a first training deployment to children from the communities to develop their camaraderie skills and vision of community development. After this, they are the ones who decide what content they would like to share, especially a magnificent editorial that we have been developing with some young leaders, creations in the Wayuunaiki mother tongue, they not only choose the literary material but also the approach to development of the activities and chat spaces. , mobile cinema spaces

We have demonstrated the effectiveness of the programs through usability tests. Where we constantly monitor indicators such as: Adoption: # of users who join the program. Perception: After the user takes one of the itinerant services, what was their perception of benefit. Scalability: We monitor that other communities replicate this model with the content they have. User usability testing is a technique used in user-centered interaction design to evaluate a product by testing with the users themselves.

The data has indicated to us without a doubt the impact on:
1. Access to information: We have managed to reach +500 people in remote communities
2. Promotion of reading: We have managed to create new spaces for family and community reading with a reception of +200 people
3. Literacy:
4. Community Development: We have managed to train +100 children who lead the itinerancy program
5. Empowerment
6. Creativity and expression: We have managed to create a publishing house of +80 volumes
A comprehensive educational, cultural and social impact

We need to strengthen several fronts to give scalability to the solution:

1. How to increase the accessibility of the training program and coverage

2. What strategies could be implemented to increase community participation and commitment

3. Identify which are the most effective educational and technological resources to satisfy the empirical learning services offered

4. What indicators could be improved to iterate this educational program

5. What strategies could be implemented to provide operational and financial sustainability

6. How we can promote cultural and linguistic diversity even further to expand reach and visibility

1. How could we strengthen collaboration between traveling libraries, local educational institutions and other community organizations to maximize impact?

2. How could we design more effective strategies to guarantee equitable access to information and educational resources, also migrating to ICT?

Outputs:

• Educational materials: Creation and distribution of own content from the same community
• Teaching and learning activities: Design and implementation of interactive educational programs and workshops. STEM inclusion
• Educational support services: Articulate the offer of new tutoring
• Evaluation and monitoring: Implementation of evaluation systems to measure more proactively

1. Program planning and design: Identify the specific educational needs of the communities you want to reach and design an educational program that adapts to those needs. Consider factors such as educational level, cultural interests, and limitations on access to resources.

2. Development of educational materials: Create or adapt relevant, high-quality educational materials that are accessible to the target community. Ensure materials are available in print and digital formats, depending on the availability of technological resources.

3. Implementation of educational activities: Organize and carry out planned educational activities, such as classes, workshops and events, in places accessible to the community, such as schools, community centers or outdoor spaces.

4. Distribution of technological resources: Offer basic training in the use of technology if necessary.

5. Offering educational support services: Establish tutoring, academic advising, and career counseling services for students and families who need it. Collaborate with professionals or volunteers trained in these areas.

6. Promotion and dissemination: Use effective promotion strategies to publicize the educational program and reach the target community. Use local media, such as posters, flyers, radio ads and social media, as well as collaboration with community leaders and local organizations.

7. Evaluation and monitoring: Implement evaluation systems to measure the impact of the program on the learning and development of the participants. Collects data regularly and uses the results to continually adjust and improve the program. This may include surveys, interviews, knowledge tests, and direct observations.

Our goal and dream is to increase the capacity, coverage, and sustainability of the program