Common Threads

August 29, 2024

Small hands gripping the edges of the colourful fabric form a circle of students in the sunny schoolyard. Delighted squeals erupt as those touching blue are called to run beneath the billowing textile to trade places across the pint-size ‘world.’ And while the real world is considerably larger, it felt a lot smaller for the six Alberta teachers who visited the Bosawas, Nicaragua in partnership with the Alberta Teachers’ Association this summer.

For ten days, the Alberta teachers took their passion for education outside their own classrooms and into remote communities. The capacity for educators to sacrifice for their students, the ability of kids to rise to challenges and embrace opportunities, and the innate universal love of parachute games (predictably!) are just a few of the things that were found to connect us across countries.

While many of the remote classrooms that were visited have been connected to technology for education by Change for Children’s projects, the brigade team’s focus was on the more tactile — connecting through arts and culture, through physical activity, and through candid dialogue. By day, the team championed inclusive physical activities that left no one behind, guided artful undertakings encouraging cultural story-telling through crafts, and facilitated navigating themes of healthy relationships in older grades.

Thanks to the generous fundraising efforts of the Alberta teachers, Bosawas teachers were equipped with lesson activities and materials, schools were equipped with sporting equipment, and every teacher in the region is today enjoying the seemingly trivial, yet extremely valuable, benefit of a fresh paper and stationery supply.

By evening, the team debriefed by the light of the Casa Verde field house, sharing the joy they had witnessed, the challenges they had come to understand, and the unfair distribution of the world’s resources that can be difficult to digest. Nestled into mosquito-netted hammocks in the still of the night gives one a unique perspective to think. About the inequality of it all. The disparities of it all. And, at the same time, the opportunities and interconnectedness of it all.

While there is indeed much that divides us, it is that which connects us that the teachers will undoubtedly take back to their Alberta schools. Having connected across their profession in Nicaragua, the team will return to their own classrooms better equipped to provide a connection for their own students to cultures, lives, and experiences a world away — thus connecting the world to pint-size future global citizens.

We live in a connected world.

Bosawas Central America and the Caribbean Education Indigenous Peoples Nicaragua Uncategorised