Micheal Kessler, our Education Coordinator, has been busy researching new ways to improve the educational component of each Brigade program. Education represents the most sustainable aspect of our programs, allowing community members to implement change for generations to come.
Recently, Water Brigades has reinvented their education model. Now, the Water Brigades team works directly with a community’s Basic Sanitation Committee (volunteer community members who help maintain and promote health practices in the locality) to develop their educational topics. The members of the Committee are now the ones who present these topics, while Brigaders act more as participants in skits, songs, and games. Shifting the development and presentation of educational materials from Brigaders to community members helps empower the community to take ownership of the educational information that is promoted in their community. The new model also helps reinforce to the community that there are people in the locality that are knowledgeable about this information, so if there are ever questions there is someone in the community to go to. These projects were piloted by Johns Hopkins, Chapman, SeattleU, and Boston with amazing success.
Our Education Coordinator is now working on applying a similar model to Public Health Brigades and Microfinance Brigades using members of the Committee for Basic Sanitation and members from the Cajas (rural banks) that Microfinance Brigades works with.
The education team is also focusing on developing the education model within Microfinance Brigades and Architecture Brigades. The Microfinance Brigades model will focus on working with and furthering the knowledge base of the Caja members, as well as adults and children of the community. The goal with Architecture Brigades is to focus on emphasizing higher learning as well as incorporating creativity by doing activities based on basic architecture concepts.
For Medical Brigades, the education team is trying to get as many Brigade groups as possible to do a Charla (educational talk) for community children to educate them in a fun and age-appropriate way about basic health topics. By separating children out of the adult charla, it will allow the adults to focus on the subject matter more easily, and will allow the children to receive educational material in a fun and exciting format.
Do you have questions, thoughts, or suggestions for how we can continue to improve the educational component of our Brigades programs? Contact Michael Kessler at mkessler@globalbrigades.org.
