Game on! Shecana’s Teacher Assist program is ready for take-off
Flights are booked and 3 BC students and their Shecana escort are set to head to Colombia on February 11th, just two weeks and a few short days away. This blog will follow their experience from trip preparation on to the schools Colombia. You’ll meet Derek, Jenna and Matthew, whose final exams this week are competing for attention along with the upcoming adventure.
While in Colombia, Shecana’s students live with carefully selected volunteer host families and attend school full time. At their schools, the Canadians will take some courses and will also work with teachers in the school to assist Colombian students to learn English. They’ll be there for the full school term then return to Canada at the end of June. Education is a high priority for Colombians: around 92% of Colombians attend private schools and the remaining 8% go to public school. This is about the opposite of the school picture in British Columbia, where the vast majority of students are in public schools. Derek, Jenna, and Mathew will attend private schools.
Where are we headed? Villavicencio, commonly known as Villavo, is a city of 360,000 people located in the foothills of the Andes 75 km southeast of Bogotá. It’s tropical, hot (average temperature 27°C) and humid, which is going to be a welcome change for those of us who experienced temperatures way, way below 0° C last week! Villavicencio is only 4° north of the equator, so seasons don’t change over the course of the year as they do here in Canada.
Villavicencio (panoramio.com)