Our Response to Covid-19
How is Child Aid Responding to the Covid-19 Crisis?
In the middle of March 2020, the government of Guatemala shut down all K-12 schools, and we were immediately faced with direct challenges to our core mission. How do we continue our literacy work with teachers and students? And how can we help the communities we serve, all the while navigating the harsh realities of the pandemic? Here is what we are doing:
Addressing an Immediate Food Crisis
An already precarious and chronic food shortage was made worse by the economic shutdowns necessary during the pandemic. Beginning in June 2020, Child Aid began delivering shelf-stable food boxes to the communities where we work. To date, Child Aid has made four large food deliveries, providing food relief to more than 12,000 people.
Leading the Charge for a Safe Return to School
A threat that hits directly at the heart of Child Aid’s work is the real possibility that children may not return to school after the pandemic subsides. It’s a global issue threatening to erase decades of very significant primary school enrollment progress. In Guatemala, the setback is heartbreakingly personal. Parents tell us they will not be able to feed their families and will need their school-age children to work and help with child care. Addressing food uncertainty could allow parents to do what they most want: send their children back to school. We plan to continue our emergency food relief efforts as long as the pandemic continues to cause catastrophic hunger, and we intend to target our food provision in a way that encourages students to return to school.
Read how we are supporting students and teachers during the Covid-19 crisis.
Continuing Child Aid’s Literacy Efforts Using Technology Solutions
Teacher training is at the heart of Child Aid’s strategy, and we moved quickly to turn our in-person workshops into virtual ones. We’re thrilled that teacher participation rates exceed 90 percent. Videos modeling Child Aid teaching techniques are widely shared via WhatsApp and Zoom. We’re also helping teachers adapt the text-heavy and poorly executed learning materials dispatched from the Guatemalan government, transforming them into student-friendly and visually oriented materials.
Learn more about how we are using technology to keep students learning.
Reaching Students Directly
Child Aid doesn’t ordinarily reach students directly with our literacy program, but the pandemic crisis and our successful use of technology emboldened us to try something new. We used local television and radio programming to reach out to students in their homes with specially curated broadcasts featuring Child Aid Read Alouds and question/answer segments broadcast in the local indigenous languages. The positive response from children and parents is more proof that our use of technology in creative, new ways really works.
Learn more about our literacy programs