Youth Supportive actions El Salvador
Students become drivers of change by applying their academic knowledge in volunteer initiatives
San Salvador, 21 May 2012.- Two members of Fundación Telefónica’s Youth Programme in El Salvador put the skills they acquired in their professional training programmes to work in an attempt to transform their communities.
The first one of them is Santos Miguel Lemus, a second-year Electrical Engineering student, who after presenting a project to electrify the church in his community, in the Coquiamita village, in Cantón Coquiamita, Sonsanate, raised the support he needed to see it come to fruition.
Asociación Ágape approved Santos Miguel’s initiative one week after the student presented it. “The association donated the electrical material, and Escuela Superior Franciscana Especializada, the school where I study, provided its support by assigning a group of students who where able to get some practical training by helping with the electrical installation”, explained Santos Miguel. The amount invested in the project was approximately 875 dollars.
The church benefiting from Santos’ initiative was built in the 1970’s, at a time when the area had still not been entirely electrified. Due to the obvious need to do so, Coquiamita representatives gathered in a meeting, and requested electrification in 1995. However, as a result of the economic conditions of the region, even today, some homes lack electricity. “My goal was to help these families by means of organizations, and to cater to the needs both of these people and of the local church”, explained Santos Miguel.
Santos Miguel, a member of Fundación Telefónica’s Youth Programme, concluded by sharing his excitement at being able to support his community - and about 17 families – in a project that he was able to carry out thanks to good teamwork.
A young man finds the way to contribute using mathematics
David Orlando Quiteño is a third-year student pursuing a Mathematics Professorship degree at the University of El Salvador. A few months ago, he began to think that he could help his community with the knowledge he had already acquired, and decided to submit a project proposal, aimed at offering support to the Secondary Education Graduates preparing for the National Secondary Learning Assessment Exams (known as PAES), and so he did.
This is how, since the beginning of the current month, David Orlando is teaching at the Dr. Camilo Arévalo Educational Centre at the Juayúa community, in Sonsonate, to help students improve their maths skills.
The 90-hour volunteer project is scheduled to run until 28 September. David Orlando’s goal is to offer a solution to classroom and community difficulties, by helping the graduates to pass their PAES exams.
