Friday afternoon workshops at SKIP

Carrying on from the success of the summer school programme, volunteers have continued to run a variety of exciting workshops for children on Friday afternoons. Joseph has continued his English classes, and there are also chess and guitar lessons on offer. All the children have shown great potential and enthusiasm in these three areas, but special mention goes to eleven year old Gersen, who has put such an amazing effort into learning English, even to the point of composing his own extensive notebook of English vocabulary, which is already half full!

>> Check Ari´s Post on the volunteers blog : "Hello Teacher, my friend forever"

Surfing classes for SKIP kids

Since December SKIP has been working with ‘Chicho’s surfing school’ (Muchik) to give secondary school students from Porvenir the opportunity to take surfing lessons. Early every Monday during the summer SKIP volunteers take the children by bus to the beach at Huanchaco, one of the best places for surfing and learning to surf in Peru. A group of Spanish surfers (Hands and Surf) have helped us by providing some boards and gears for the kids and ‘Chicho’s Surfing School’ provides the free teaching.

Chicho’s Muchik surf school is run by experienced and friendly surf teachers who have been really enthusiastic about helping kids in the community and working with SKIP. By renting their boards to the Huanchaco tourists, Chicho and his brother Omar (both experienced surf teachers) have been able to raise money and pay transportation and food for the SKIP children. Chicho´s family has always been known in Huanchaco for the social help they provide to the Huanchaco kids and now to Porvenir Children.

Thanks to this collaboration kids who would never otherwise get the opportunity to surf (nor see the ocean) are having fun riding the waves. And some of them promise to be future Peru champions !

A special thank to you, Chicho !!

English Teaching in Porvenir

There are currently four SKIP volunteers teaching English in three schools in Porvenir: Lizarzaburu, Indoamericano and JC Mariategui. In the mornings they give classes to sixth graders with the aim of providing a fun and simple introduction to the English language. In the afternoon they teach secondary classes, with a view to improving students speaking and listening skills and introducing some appreciation of different places and cultures.

There are normally about 40 kids per class – an almost unmanageable number – so SKIP volunteers have been working in pairs, often breaking classes into smaller groups, and focusing on activities and team work. The great majority of the children are extremely friendly and eager to learn; some even practice their English with volunteers in the school yard. A few of the teachers have been very supportive, but others have taken on much less of an active role. We are still working on establishing a more productive working relation with the teaching staff as a whole.

Formal contracts have been signed with the schools, and we also plan to work closely with the school teachers to improve their English, and share new ideas for language teaching. Hopefully we will be able to involve other training institutions in this process. We have now been working together with Indoamericano for five years and have built up excellent relations with the school in this time. One really positive thing to have come from this is that on Saturday mornings they give us use of the school premises so we can hold extra classes and workshops.

Award from the National University of Trujillo

On the 7th of March SKIP director Berangere Furbacco, our Social Worker intern Hilda Pachamango and Social worker Karin Cedeño, attended a presentation evening organised by the UNT, National University of Trujillo.

SKIP was one of twenty institutions chosen by the social studies faculty to receive an award.
The award was given in recognition of the positive social contribution SKIP is making in El Porvenir and also as an acknowledgement of the long standing collaboration we have with the University’s faculty of social studies.

For several years SKIP has been providing internships to social work students, many of whom have continued to play an active part in the programme. As well as receiving this award SKIP will also sign a formal agreement with the University to continue taking on new interns in the future.