Nenemi Paxia - Thinking Guidelines

The problem to be solved is the educational backwardness suffered by the indigenous child and youth population in Mexico, aggravated by the school closure caused by COVID 19, but which historically largely derives from a public educational system that does not offer a relevant educational proposal (in cultural and linguistic terms) to the reality of this population, adapted to its context, and which took into account the rural extraction and geographic isolation of the localities where a good part of it resides. The solution develops a radio-educational proposal based on the students' own languages and their culture, which has already been piloted experimentally in Chiapas together with teachers from a public educational system and with the potential to scale regionally to other states of Mexico and the continent, in order to generate educational systems that promote the development of the potential of all students, eliminating linguistic, cultural and geographical barriers.

In general, the existing basic education systems in Mexico do not offer an educational proposal that incorporates sufficient pedagogical processes and content that respond to the linguistic and cultural context of indigenous children and adolescents, who prove that they learn from their native indigenous language and from a cultural perspective of its own. This problem affects their right to receive a quality education, brings as a consequence their educational backwardness and weakens their possibilities to develop their full potential. The problem is aggravated if because an important part of this population of children and adolescents lives in rural communities that present a high degree of communicative isolation and that during the COVID 19 Pandemic suffered especially such isolation.

The need to have public education systems adapted to this reality is structurally necessary to guarantee the right to quality education and to help overcome the indices of inequality and poverty experienced by indigenous peoples.

In Mexico, where there are 68 officially registered indigenous languages, the problem described focuses on the indigenous population between 0 and 14 years of age: 3,821,578 persons. More than 50% are concentrated in rural localities with less than 2,500 inhabitants with poor communications and significant educational deficits.

Solve: Nenemi Paxia - Guidelines for Thinking in My Language is an educational proposal for its adaptation by the different school systems that work with indigenous populations of the pre-school, primary and secondary grades (0-14 years). The proposal is based on a methodology focused on developing critical thinking in students, starting off from their natural curiosity to try to understand the world around them, from their own contexts and based on their own language and culture. The proposal offers practical learning experiences that allow students to understand the complexity of the phenomena that surround them and offer them different perspectives for their understanding.

The fundamental communication vehicle to reach all students is pre-recorded radio capsules, prepared by specialists in pedagogy, communication and indigenous cultural translators-promoters. There are other materials (guides and tutorial videos for teachers, activity sheets) prepared with the same criteria. Also, support and training is provided to teachers.

The implementation of Guidelines for Thinking in my Language, adapted to each linguistic and cultural context of an indigenous people, achieves significant learning in students, improves their participation and school performance, and combats school backwardness.

Currently Nenemi Paxia implements the solution Guidelines for Thinking in My Language in the Mexican state of Chiapas with the collaboration of the Universidad Iberoamericana de México, various community radio stations and the governmental educational system of the National Commission for Educational Development (CONAFE). The CONAFE system provides educational coverage through 1,297 teachers (called Community Educational Leaders) to more than 20,000 students from 0 to 14 years of age, mostly indigenous (Chiapas is one of the three states of Mexico with the highest percentage of indigenous population in the country - 28.2% -), in rural localities with less than 5,000 inhabitants. In Chiapas, Guidelines for Thinking in My Language is developed on the basis of materials prepared in the main indigenous languages of the state (Tsotsil, Tseltal, Ch´ol and Tojolabal), and also Spanish.

The project is in its penultimate year of execution and has offered optimal results from the point of view of its adaptation to the geographical, cultural and linguistic context of the groups of students at the pre-school level (0-4 years); primary (5-11 years) and secondary (12-14 years), as well as the conditions of Pandemic COVID 19 that emerged during the period March 2020 to the present. In the absence of a final evaluation, the monitoring process carried out reveals an increase in the rates of participation, motivation and achievement of significant learning by students.

During the process of implementing the Guidelines for Thinking in My Language, pilot tests are carried out with pre-selected indigenous school groups, involving students in the design of the content of the materials that will later be implemented with the population as a whole. Each radio-educational series tested in this pilots, constitute a complete learning experience about a natural or cultural phenomenon typical of the community context. These tests start from the curiosity and questions that the students themselves formulate and basis from four perspectives:

1. The previous and own knowledge of the students (children and young people)

2. Community knowledge.

3. The exploration and direct contact with the phenomenon to be studied.

4. Universal or scientific knowledge.

At the same time, during the general implementation with the entire student population, the Nenemi Paxia team carries out monitoring and evaluation in contact with teachers, authorities of the education system and mothers and fathers of the students, at in order to value each learning experience.

Nenemi Paxia raises this experience in Chiapas as a model for its scaling up to the educational systems of other states of Mexico, particularly Oaxaca (31.2% of indigenous population) and Yucatán (28.2% of indigenous population), through its adaptation to linguistic contexts and cultural characteristics of each one of them and an advocacy work on educational public policy based on the evidence collected during its implementation in Chiapas.

Eventually, Guidelines for Thinking in My Language has the potential to be developed in other countries of the Latin American region, especially in country regions with a high percentage of the population speaking an indigenous language and rural extraction.

The educational methodology of Guidelines for Thinking in My Language addresses the problem of education in isolated rural settings, where the presence of teachers is not regular and with low connectivity. The fundamental support for the implementation are radio capsules, broadcast by rural radio stations and / or carried by teachers on their cell phones when they visit their students, who mostly only speak an indigenous language. The methodology provides them a quality learning experience in their own language, from an approach based on the development of critical thinking, the exploration and practical experimentation of their community environment.

Nenemi Paxia has developed and tested its educational methodology through several pilot projects since 2014 in rural and indigenous communities in the state of Chiapas, Mexico. It has a consolidated team of pedagogical advisers, specialists in radio and audiovisual communication, and translators from Spanish to the main indigenous languages of Chiapas, with training in cultural and linguistic relevance for teaching.

Since 2019, in collaboration with the Ibero-American University of Mexico and the government institution National Commission for Educational Development (CONAFE), the project “Guidelines for Thinking in My Language” has been applied with 1,297 teachers (community educational leaders) of preschool, primary and secondary grades who carry out their work as teachers of more than 20,000 children and young students, mostly speakers of an indigenous language in rural communities of less than five thousand habitants of 19 educational regions of Chiapas, Mexico.

The innovation of the solve is in the generation of an educational proposal adapted to multicultural contexts, with special emphasis on rural and indigenous contexts, as well as in the use of integrated communication technologies (radio, cell phones, google classroom) to overcoming physical barriers. The development of the solution and its evaluation in the context in which it is currently applied (rural and mostly indigenous communities in Chiapas) will offer a proven tool to influence the modification of the educational plans of government institutions in other states of Mexico, in order to the educational proposal (“Guidelines for Thinking in My Language”) can also be adopted in them.

Current number: 20,000 students between 0-14 years old in Chiapas, Mexico.

In one year: 20,000 students between 0-14 years old in Chiapas, Mexico.

In five years: At least, 1,460,000 students between 0-14 years old in the states of Chiapas, Oaxaca, Yucatán, Guerrero and Puebla (Mexico), and, eventually, same number in another country of Latinamerica.

The indicators to assess the impact of the proposal are:

1. Alliances established with six educational systems with a presence in the southeast region of Mexico and Latin America, and a process of institutional transfer of educational methodology completed with them.

2. A Digital Platform linked to a cell phone application to strengthen and monitor the work of teachers in all educational systems in which the proposal is being implemented.

3. A significant increase in school performance, the participation and motivation of indigenous students linked to the school systems that have implemented the proposal. A reduction of at least one percentage point in the school-behind rates of indigenous students aged 0-14 in the first two states of Mexico in which the proposal has been implemented (currently Chiapas. Yucatán as the next step)

Currently 12 people work in the Nenemi Paxia team as a full-time team. There are also three external evaluators, as well as a consultant to raise funds.

Nenemi Paxia's team is made up of specialists in pedagogy, education, communication and cultural translators-promoters. All of them have a long history of social commitment and work in educational projects with indigenous peoples in the southeast of Mexico. The majority of the team is made up of indigenous women belonging to the educational community of Chiapas or with work experience in this sector.

The majority of the team is made up of indigenous women belonging to the educational community of Chiapas or with work experience in this sector. This part of the team is essential for the practical development of the solve. They are a fundamental guide for the linguistic and cultural adaptation of the educational proposal.

We believe that Solve offers us a possibility of growth in the scale of our proposal, especially in the achievement of significant financial and technological alliances.

Specifically, we seek alliances to finance the growth of the educational proposal to other states of Mexico and countries in the Latin American region, as well as technological alliances that improve the use of the communication tools that we use with students and also to teacher virtual training (such as google classroom)

Specifically, we seek alliances with partners that can finance the growth of our educational proposal towards other states of Mexico or Latin American countries, as well as improve the educational communication technologies that we use.

No, I do not wish to be considered for this prize.