Hi. My name is Patricia Morales Remírez from la Escuela del Sector Entre Ríos, and I am taking this opportunity to tell you how my life has changed since the arrival of the pandemic and the inevitable state of emergency that was declared by the Guatemalan government. All classes, for both students and teachers, were immediately suspended in March. All of us were affected personally by the increasing number of confirmed cases of COVID-19. As human beings, and we were all justifiably afraid of contacting the virus.

But as time passed, we, as teachers, began to be more concerned for our students’ education, and we began looking for ways of getting schoolwork to them and following up with their progress. Communication was not always easy, of course. Many of the students don’t have access to a computer or a smartphone, and for these I delivered the schoolwork in person, or dropped off worksheets at a shop where the students could pick them up and return them when finished.

Thanks to the training we received from TINFA, and to César, our Director, who has shared with us his expertise, I have been able to use the internet efficiently to find and develop teaching materials, such as word games and math exercises, for my students.

We are grateful to your organization for continuing to think about the education of our children. You are enabling teachers to collaborate, to share and contribute strategies that allow the children to continue learning, even while at home and unable to attend school.

I have been following up on the students’ progress and, as I hope is evident from the photographs, they have been happily engaged their schoolwork.