Why did you create this innovation?

Because inequality gaps between rural and urban areas are significant and the pandemic has widened them. Globally, there is a crisis in the education paradigm. We are not learning enough skills to develop ourselves successfully in the 21st century. We need to learn deeply and we need to develop creativity, critical thinking, collaboration, among other skills (Fullan, 2014).

How does your innovation work in practice?

Puentes Educativos has four key actors: students, teachers/principals, families and stakeholders. First, we present the project to each of the actors and they can join voluntarily. This guarantees a greater commitment towards the project. Then, we implement different actions for each actor, for example students actively participate in their learning process through active methodologies (project-based learning, debates, peer-tutoring, interactive groups...). They also receive leadership and social-emotional training. Regarding teachers and principals, the project provides training on leadership strategies and new teaching methodologies. We also promote collaborative networks between different schools. In the case of families, we provide training in socio-emotional and parental skills and promote the participation of parents in the students' learning process. Finally, for the stakeholders, multisectoral work spaces have been designed, between private, public and civil society actors.

How has it been spreading?

We began in 2009 as a pilot project for 3 years funded by a CSR strategy. To date, we have overcome the initial funding barrier and have raised more than USD $ 5 million, we have implemented the project in more than 800 schools in 3 Latin American countries: Chile, Guatemala and Nicaragua. We have supported the Minedu of Peru through consultancies. Our strategy for scalability is to understand the context and learn from it to adapt the intervention, in line with the Millions Learning Real-Time Scaling Labs project proposed by Brookings (2018). Another key factor is to generate capacities within each educational community. In the next 5 years, we hope to expand the scope to other rural contexts in the Global South. For this reason we are already partnering with several related institutions.

If I want to try it, what should I do?

You should get in contact with the project to receive the training and the protocols of implementation: info@fundacion99.org