We reaffirm that education is a public good, a fundamental human right and the basis to guarantee the realization of other rights. It is essential for peace, tolerance, human fulfillment and sustainable development (2030 Framework for Action – UNESCO)
We are committed to quality education and improvement of learning outcomes, for which we provide comprehensive support to public institutions in order to strengthen processes, evaluation of results and mechanisms to measure progress.
We ensure and propose actions so that teachers and educators are empowered, professionally qualified, motivated and supported.
We promote innovation and incorporation of technologies for both teachers and teaching-learning processes in order to take advantage of information and communication technologies (ICT) to strengthen education systems, dissemination of knowledge, access to information, effective and quality learning, and a more efficient service provision.
Alda Educa is a project that has been implemented in Paraguay since 2004. It is carried out in the field of formal education through a cooperation agreement with the Ministry of Education and Science (MEC).
The project is a comprehensive socio-educational intervention strategy that contributes to the achievement of educational quality in public institutions.
The period of intervention in each center is of 4 years, in which teachers, principals and parents’ associations are helped in a personalized way to come up with a participative and integrating Institutional Educational Project that reflects the social reality of their own community.
Alda Educa seeks:
The observatory is a space to identify, follow up and monitor Alda experiences considered good practices in the social and educational aspects, whose meaning and process deserve to be understood and especially shared.
The knowledege generated by the systematization of good practices contributes significantly to enrich the educational and historical heritage and at the same time, to identify the transformative actions generated in the communities and educational institutions.
Research
Education
Publications and production of educational materials
Access to higher education: We seek to reduce the access gap to tertiary and university level studies for adolescents and young people who are in the most vulnerable socioeconomic conditions.
This innovative project seeks to improve the quality of education that teenagers receive in public institutions of communities with low development.
We support teenagers from low-income communities who stand out for their academic talents as well as for their interpersonal skills and social commitment, from 9th grade of basic education to 3rd year of secondary education, and later throughout the pre-university and university stages. This enables them to successfully complete secondary education and reach tertiary and / or university studies with the necessary knowledge and tools for entry, permanence and successful completion.
We want teenagers to have educational experiences that allow them to overcome the gap separating them from those who are in more favorable socioeconomic conditions.
A four-phase selection process is applied:
The Project works with teenagers during a schedule opposite to their school shift, focusing on the cognitive, social and skills development for the use of information and communication technologies through face-to-face sessions with professionals in each area, tutorials and virtual sessions. Likewise, we work with families and schools to monitor these teenagers. Also, spaces are created for the exchange of knowledge about work internships and community projects designed, managed and implemented by these young people.
Our support is complemented with a conditional cash transfer to cover the beneficiary’s expenses related to their studies.
The Project has a team of professionals who are responsible for planning, implementing and evaluating the various activities. It also receives the cooperation of several volunteers who help implementing them.
We promote the protection of the rights of children and adolescents, making effective the full validity of their rights with proposals that encourage social and community mobilization.
The CSC is a socio-educational action strategy, framed in the field of non-formal education, serving communities of low socioeconomic status.
The Community Service Center focuses on various projects whose purpose is to offer children, youth and adults services and activities that contribute to their personal development and community consolidation:
Early Childhood Project (ECP): it is a proposal on non-formal early education for children from 2 to 4 years old with strong emphasis on training parents in children’s bio-psychosocial development.
This special attention to children in their first years of life is based on the conviction that overall attention to development, care and protection needs makes a difference in children’s development reducing inequalities, improving health and nutrition, as well as preventing alterations in development and subsequent academic performance.
Creative Education Project (CEP): In Paraguay, children go to school either in the morning or the afternoon. Only some private and paid educational institutions contemplate a continuous school schedule.
The Creative Education Project is a proposal that considers non-formal activities in the hours in which children from pre-school to third grade do not attend school, that is, in the opposite shift. These activities are play based and recreational having as their objective that children learn by playing.
Three differentiated and complementary areas are worked on: scientific-mathematic, communication and recreation. It is considered that through these activities the whole development is favored and the learning that takes place in school is enriched.
Paraguay Okakuaa’s main objective is “to support the country in its efforts to reduce the worst forms of child labor and improve compliance with labor laws and working conditions.”
It is implemented in the Department of Guairá, specifically in the municipalities of Borja, Iturbe, Mauricio José Troche, Paso Yobai and Villarrica.
This initiative of the Ministry of Labor, Employment and Social Security of Paraguay seeks to strengthen the effectiveness of labor inspection and information systems, and increase coordination among the different institutions in order to stop child labor and register teenage workers. It is funded by the United States Department of Labor, and implemented by Partners of the Americas and its partners CIRD (Information and Resources for Development Center) and Fundación Alda.
The project aims at improving the protection of children and offer better education opportunities in the department of Guairá while promoting compliance with labor laws and improvements in working conditions in that department.
“Improving the protection of children and education opportunities in the Department of Guairá”. For this, Alda will work with 900 children from 5 districts of the department of Guairá with the creation of “Spaces for Growth” (SFG) that are organized in opposite shifts, and the annual SuperCamps in winter holidays.
The project’s final goal is the creation of a Departmental Council to Stop Child Labor, which will bring together various public and private community actors. Its purpose will be to consolidate the achievements obtained during its development.
The implementation period of the project is from May 2016 to September 2019.
We promote community development with a transformative, preventive and rights-based perspective focused on children, prioritizing specific areas of health, education and strengthening of local organizations through training, support and the creation of local networks in the framework of the rights approach.
The Program seeks to encourage community development processes that contribute to the promotion of citizen coexistence and favor the social inclusion of all the residents of the community.
The program is implemented in schools and public spaces.
The work gives priority to the fields of education, health and the strengthening of local organizations through work with children, families and neighborhood associations.
This program is implemented jointly by Fundación Alda and the Christian Children’s Fund of Canada (CCFC) by means of an agreement signed in October 2011.
Gender equality is not only a fundamental human right, but the necessary foundation for a peaceful, prosperous and sustainable world.
We promote the full exercise of women’s human rights and specific actions to reduce gender gaps as well as prevent gender-based violence.
The project focuses on combat and prevention of violence towards girls and women in educational communities of 17 schools in 4 vulnerable communities of the Central Department, in the districts of Limpio, Villeta, Villa Elisa and Guarambaré.
The general objectives are to prevent violence against school girls and women of educational communities from vulnerable areas and to promote their rights and social protection through the strengthening of public schools and educational communities in their role as guarantors and promoters of their rights and social protection.
We establish alliances and networks with organizations, public and private entities for the implementation of initiatives of common interest and the design of policies and projects promoting sustainable development of communities in vulnerable situations.
We actively cooperate with the Ministry of Education and Science in the design and implementation of educational models that contribute to and support the development of quality education in educational institutions.
For Fundación Alda , being part of debates and proposals, is part of the commitment to promote advocacy actions. We participate in networks of collaboration, reflection and advocacy to achieve greater results in the creation of public policies that guarantee the rights of all citizens. Children and adolescents from the reflection and training spaces created for this purpose are also involved.
For Fundación Alda, it is very important to work in a network with other entities, as well as to achieve solid agreements in Spain and Paraguay, for the sustainability and improvement of all the projects in the educational field and the promotion of good socio-educational practices.
Our approach stems from the following concept of the Spanish Cooperation’s Education Strategy for Development (Ortega 2007):
“An educational process (formal, non-formal and informal) constantly directed, through knowledge, attitudes and values, to promote a global citizenship that generates a culture of solidarity committed to the fight against poverty and exclusion, as well as the promotion of human and sustainable development”
Based on that, we work the ESFD in formal, non-formal and informal education with various activities.
