I was fortunate enough to make contact with a
professional in Moyobamba, Peru. His
name is Odaer Aflatoun. I have found our
conversations to be very interesting since he does not speak English and I have
had to rely on Google for translation.
Not everything he has written has translated perfectly to English.
I recently asked Odaer how poverty is effecting the
education of children in Peru. Odaer (personal communication, May 10, 2012)
stated that the conditions of poverty are greatly effecting quality
education. Some children are not able to
access quality education due to lack of state funds. Classroom materials are insufficient and
schooling is only available in urban areas.
This means that if children want to attend school, some are walking one
to two hours just to get there. From
Odaer’s perspective, little is being done to help change the poverty issues in
Peru, but he is an advocate supporting many organizations in their efforts.
Through my conversations with Odaer Aflatoun, I have
better insight about how poverty is effecting children outside of the United
States. It is sad to me that some children
do not have school readily available for them.
This is a concern for the future of these children and their
families. Odaer referenced a couple
websites that he uses for resources on poverty that I explored for further
information about Peru as well as other countries.
and
Hi Erika,
ReplyDeleteI learned from your post how bad the education part is in Peru. There are lots of places in China that have similar situation as in Peru and the government starts to help these children from rural areas by building schools, sending donations of books and stationery and so on.
Thanks for sharing this information with us and I enjoyed reading your post.
Lufei
Wow, thank you for sharing you conversation with Odaer. It is very sad to know that many of the children in Peru are not being able to attend school because of lack of funds, when in America we see it as every child must attend school. Whats more depressing is that little is being done. As education professionals we know the importance of education and more should be done for every child to be able to learn.
ReplyDeleteHi Erika, I am curious about the education available to children in urban areas. Did Odaer talk about opportunities for preschool experiences and for those unfortunate children that live in rural areas and have to walk long distances to school, is this with older aged children or all children in general? It is so hard to imagine the hardships that so many children face and to think that education is not available to all children.
ReplyDeleteErika,
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing the information you learned from Odaer. It is quite unfortunate that some children do not have access to school. In Rwanda, Africa, because of the unrest there, there is no school anywhere. What I know about children in Williamsburg is that there are some children who do not go to preschool because we do not have enough slots between Head Start and the state prek program. We both keep a waiting list of at least 70. We both have a point system to make sure that the neediest of the needy receive services.