Educational Projects in Underserved Communities

education in small steps and full circles

Educational Projects in Under-served Communities

In conformity with our mandate to work provide opportunties for underserved communities, Micro Steps will undertake the following ongoing projects as funding permits.

Support and Encourgement of Rural Preschools

Educators agree that children who attend preschools jump start their peers who were not able to attend. Many countries in the world struggle with the cost of elementary, secondary and high schools and simple do no have the extra funds to create and maintain the cost of preschools. In the early 1980's Mrs. Frances Fletcher began to train preschool teachers in Swaziland. Many of these teacher were absorbed into the growing private and religious preschools. Others simply went home and started a preschool in their comunnity. With little besides the knowledge they gained from the training, these teachers struggled financially and were not able to afford much in the way of school supplies. Our contribution to this educational endeavor is to purchase and deliver school supplies with a case worker to some of these rural preschools. The case worker makes unannounced visits to these preschools and quickly surveys the need. The case worker makes a list of what she determines would enhance the school and presents it to the teacher on the spot.

Libraries in Rural Areas

Education is a major expense to governments everywhere. In many developing countries, this problem is especially acute. Often the support for urban schools is greater than for rural schools. Many rural schools have a space for a library but no books to fill it. It is a rare occurrence, under such circumstances, for children to have access to books. Most lessons are delivered by the teacher, written on a blackboard and copied into a notebook. This project will place books in small rural libraries in developing countries where there are currently few, if any, books.

Educational Support of Orphans

With the world-wide spread of HIV/AIDS there are increasing geographic pockets of large numbers of orphans. UNICEF, through studies, has determined that the best way to minimize further emotional trauma to such children is to keep them in their home villages where extended family and friends can continue to nurture them. The emotional and intellectual growth of such children is best served by trying to keep them in their home village and to educate them there.

Based on this, our approach is to focus on those orphaned young children who have been able to remain in their home villages or have been moved to a village where they have family. We will help, where possible, to sponsor children to attend school by paying for their school fees and school uniforms. As part of this process, we will do everything possible to create and maintain a healthy attitude in such children with respect to the gift of their education.

ESL / EFL

Many people are thirsty to learn English. Many countries have programs to allow children and adults to study English. We intend to produce materials, using short stories as a basis, to assist in this teaching. In conjunction with universities and governments, we will offer a large number of short stories that will be recorded in English and can be printed in both English and a local language.

We will also spearhead other ESL / EFL projects via internet based technoligies.

Micro Loans for Education

Micro Loans have proven to be an effective way to jump start economic development. We intend to use Micro Loans to jump start educational projects that might not otherwise see the light of day. Implementation is some time off, but if you have interest or ideas in this regard, please contact us.

If you are interested in and of these projects, please contact us.