Early on, our Comité recognized that education was an area of great need in San Ramón. Since then, SCSRN has worked hard to ensure that all children in San Ramón have access to education. However, we haven’t been very involved in improving the quality of education that students receive. Until now. We are partnering with a local organization called Comité Mano Vuelta (CMV), a sister city program between Matagalpa and Tilburg, Holland that was been working to improve education in the department of Matagalpa for many years. San Ramón has been included in many of their trainings over the years, but this is the first time that they are planning a certification program that is exclusively designed to meet the needs of San Ramón teachers.

CMV has alliances with la Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Nicaragua (UNAN) in Matagalpa, the Ministry of Education, the local teacher’s union, and World Vision. Because of these alliances, they are able to design teacher certification programs taught by university professors and recognized by the Ministry of Education to ensure that teachers receive a pay raise in recognition of these higher studies. Starting in March 2018, we have contributed to two certification programs this year: one that covers areas of improvement that San Ramón teachers have identified in their own practice, and another for teachers who work in coffee-picking areas to reduce the instances of child labor and dropouts. A total of 80 elementary school teachers in San Ramón are participating in these two programs. The programs are set to conclude in November 2018.