Technician Education
I am Mario Mejia Pantaleón, coordinator in the field of education
and currently coordinator of COMADEP in Peten. I was born in a poor peasant
familiy. And I was brought up in the cooperativist movement.
I have been working with COMADEP for 6 years in the formation of professional
teachers, and very recently I became the new regional coordinator. I feel
very satisfied and fulfilled with my job in which I work with human development.
This work for me is the university of life. Here, with our experience
we all learn from each other. I am partly responsible for the implementation
of the philosophy and of alternatives for the development of the activities
of COMADEP in the state of Petén.
"My work at COMADEP is the university of life",
says teacher and coordinator Mario Mejía
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The program of professionalizing teachers in rural areas is designed for
the returned refugees, people who had to move during the armed conflict
and the underdeveloped population in the rural areas. While living in
the camps in the jungle during the conflict these groups wanted another
type of education. The families asked the teacher of the village to select
people who could read and write. This way the first education began like
mobile schools, depending on the movement of the army that was after the
refugees.
Though now the teachers were appointed, they still weren't graduated for
the work and lacked their title. Therefore, with the technical help of
COMADEP, the formation of qualified teachers started in 1994.
Martín Ramirez, a boy from the q´anjobal ethnic community, was in the program from the beginning while he was still living in the camps. He studied in very primitive circumstances. He took his first classes in caves or in the jungle. His first school boards were the earth, trunks and leaves of the trees.
He finished primary and secondary school in the refugee camps in Mexico. There he was asked to start teaching the children. When he came back to Petén, Guatemala, he joined the program to professionalize the teachers, assisted by COMADEP. When he graduated and obtained his diploma as a teacher he started working for AMERG, the association that represents the teachers in rural areas. Currently he is working in a secondary school in a rural community and is a teacher at a highschool as well.
first classes in caves and under trees
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The educational program takes two years. In total 228 teachers graduated as official teachers of primary school. They are working in 84 communities. About 10.000 children of the poorest areas of Guatemala are receiving classes.
of Guatemala are now receiving classes from the professionalized teachers
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The program is also contributing to a democratic, participative, critical and positive education. It focusses on gender, cultural identity and the whole community.
The majority of the teachers that obtained their titles with the project, are q´eqchi, qánjobal, mam and poptiquiche. They are teaching in their own villages. The program is a good alternative for the lack of teachers and is contributing to solve the big educational problems that Guatemala is still facing.
Most villages lay very isolated and are often difficult to access. The daily reality of these indigenous people is extreme poverty. They hardly have any access to health services, to education and still lack basic needs. The program is a concrete support to these forgotten villages and also contributes to the peace and development process of Guatemala.
back home from school
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villages lay very isolated in the jungle
www.comadep.org
Constructed by:
Cinemotion Rising Art
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