Ngobe Bugle Schools Growth 1999–2001
2001 Molejon Elementary School
In collaboration with FUNDESCU, the tutorial school school chosen to be the recipient of Mona Foundation's $3,000.00 grant is Escuela de Quebrada Molejon in Chiriqui, Ngobe-Bugle area. This primary school has six grades (1 - 6) and this year it has had its second graduation of students who have gone on to secondary education. Providing education for the 52 students are three native Guaymi teachers, Alexis Bejerano, Ismael Atencio and Alfredo de Gracia.
This school is one of eight tutorial schools which provide for the education of native children of the region who otherwise have no access to education. More importantly, the governing board of these schools draws on the indigenous population to become trained teachers in service of their immediate community. We are very proud of this initiative, and look forward to our six-month and 12-month evaluation to determine how we can better serve the intent of this worthy project.
top2001 Trip to Molejon
Our Mona Foundation trip to Molejon was by far the most eventful part of our recent visit to our projects in Panama. To get to this three room school, which we started supporting by a grant of $3000 towards the salary of one teacher and the educational needs of 100 children grades K-6, we flew the length of Panama from Panama City to David, took a 2 1/2 hour drive up rocky roads in a jeep, then hired horses to carry our provision for an overnight stay and walked about 10 hours over five steep mountains and three rivers to get there!! To build this school for their children, the parents had carried all the construction material on their backs over the the same mountains!!
We were graciously welcomed and fed, and officially introduced through two consultative sessions with the residents, some of whom had walked 4 hours to get to the school. What a moving experience to be in their presence. And their foremost desire was to start adding grades for a high school, so that their children would not have to leave their village and travel 6 hours each way in rain and seasonal floods to get to the nearest high school.
The Ngobe-Bugle tribe (previously known by its Spanish equivalent, the Guaymis) are an indigenous group of people living mainly in the sparsely populated highlands of the western provinces of Chiriqui, Bocas del Toro and Veraguas in the Republic of Panama. The national government has recently granted them their own autonomous reservation. There are an estimated 130,000 Ngobe-Bugles whose native language is ngobere. The primary source of income is subsistence agriculture, with many families, including children, traveling to coffee plantations during the harvest season, a practice that makes continuing education difficult. Poverty, malnutrition and illiteracy are widespread. Basic services such as running water, electricity and paved roads are scarce. The Ngobe-Bugles live in small-scattered communities over a wide and mountainous area not easily accessible, which impedes the establishment of official government schools.
Over a considerable period of time, the Bahá'í community has been established in Ngobe-Bugle area, and In the absence of governmental services, has established several social and economic development projects to raise the human resources of the Ngobe-Bugle populations. These initiatives include the only radio transmission in ngobere, the native language used in the area, 10 schools in 10 villages spread throughout the surrounding highlands, each about 3-4 hours walk from each other, and a teacher certification program.
We consulted about ways to continue our support of these schools. One idea was initiating a social and economic development project called, "Ngobe-Bugles Mothers for High school," where the women of this village, with seed funds from the Mona Foundation, will produce their crafts for marketing in the US, with a percentage of the income distributed to the participating women, to the high school, and to the village. We will await a proposal from them through the Indigenous Regional Council supporting these activities.
Another important part of this visit was a full day teacher training course offered by Dr. Randie Gottlieb, member of the Mona Foundation board. 19 teachers from all the ten schools serviced by the Indigenous Regional Council walked for hours up and down the mountains to attend this training session held on the grounds of the Ngobe-Bugles Cultural Institute.
1999 Seven Tutorial Schools
The schools were established to provide basic bilingual (Spanish/ngabere) pre-school and elementary education for children of any religion in Ngobe-Bugle indigenous communities where a community was prepared to support the establishment of a rural school. The involvement of the community in the school affairs was of primary importance, meeting regularly to oversee the progress of the schools, and providing housing and food for the teachers. At the end of 1999 there were seven schools with 13 teachers, some schools larger than others. The schools have a provisional recognition by the Ministry of Education pending the completion of several stipulations.
Sistema de Aprendizaje Tutorial (SAT) (Tutorial Learning System). Created in 1974 in Colombia, SAT is a formal educational system developed by the Rural University in Cali, Colombia, to provide a scientifically based high school education to students of rural area. SAT was introduced in the Ngobe-Bugle area in 1988 as a way for the native volunteer teachers to complete their high school education. This would lead to the fulfillment of Ministry of Education requirements for teachers, which in turn would enable the Institute to seek local funding for teacher salaries. SAT pupils study at home but meet regularly with a tutor.
Solidarity Groups, a small agricultural project emphasizing teamwork. They were established to provide an alternative to 'slash and burn' methods of agriculture and thus assure a reliable and continuous source of food. This project was started with the assistance of the Rural University in Cali, Colombia.
Radio Bahá'í, established to serve the Ngobe-Bugle area is the only radio station that transmits in the area's native language Ngobere. Strongly supported by Bisharat, a Canadian non-profit NGO, which is at the moment carrying out large scale upgrading of equipment and training. Radio Bahá'í supports the development of all the other development projects in the area.