AN EDUCATIONAL ENGAGEMENT FROM A YOUNG AND LEADER PERUVIAN GIRL

The 5th and 6th April, Andrea participated in an educational training held in Cajamarca Region (North-Ouest of Peru), about some mathematics and communication didactics and literacy skills; as part of her engagement as a professional from Enseña Peru (PEP), a leadership program founded in 2010 in the country, as part of the global commitment for education: Teach For All. 

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In 2018, Andrea decided to join Enseña Peru and be part of the visionary and transformer life experience between students, professionals and communities, in some areas where education needs to be developed. Being a PEP of a five children’s group, from 6 to 9 years old, was something familiar for her. Her mom is a teacher, so she has grown up in a teaching environment. After high school she doubted about studying education or communication sciences at the university. She did feel like doing something different, so her choice was communication because she knew that it could work also for education.

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Accepting the offer to become a PEP was a challenge: it involved to stop her profession as a social communicator for 2 years, to move on to another city and to live alone in a place with difficult access to Internet. At the beginning it was not easy. She had to face labor harassment in a school where the principal and the teachers were all men. She was about to give up. She thought she could not do it. In moments like those her greatest motivation was the children from San Lorenzo Alto community, where some of them have to walk for one hour to can study, from Monday to Friday. If she refused to continue it would be very complicated for them to have the chance to pursue their education. 

Currently, it is hard to convince some teachers to come to a far away place to start over; especially, in a country where education is among the lowest paid careers ($ 637,97 dollars). She decided to continue no matter if she had to walk as well, every once a week, for one hour, because there is no transportation to get to school. During weekdays, she spends her nights in the library’s room that she implements after classes in order to sleep as comfortable as possible. 

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Nowadays, she feels very proud of what she has done so far, and her best reward is the children’s smile in every single moment, whether they are playing “Kiwi” or singing the song “El Pisao”. During her first PEP year, she created a schooling project called: “Create and dream San Lorenzo Alto”, which aimed to improve some literacy competencies based on writing and oral comprehension; as well as, writing production. 

In her second and last year, she would like to create her second project that she calls: “The travelling little backpack”; in which she seeks to develop children’s entrepreneurial skills focus on the elaboration, production and selling of handmade wristbands.