PazAprender Santa-Rosa, Timbiquí

The municipality of Timbiquí (Cauca), Colombia has one of the lowest indicators of quality of life. Some of the problems that the town suffers are the access and quality of educational services offered to its children and youth. Timbiquí population has deep socioeconomic limitations in a geographical isolated region that exacerbate their situation of social inequality. The solution proposes a collaborative and self-managed process by the community for the implementation of an Intranet/Internet Community Network (IICN). This network would provide access to an adequate learning environment to Children and Youth in the rural and isolated region of (Santa Rosa)-Timbiquí in remote and hybrid settings. To achieve this goal, a collaborative co-design process is required to improve the pedagogical capabilities of teachers. It also requires a training process to improve the technical and administrative capabilities of the extended educational community (students, teachers, parents, leaders of the community) to support the IINC.

Economic barriers to access digital technology in this remote and isolated region exacerbates the problem of providing quality education for children and youth in an area accessible only by air and maritime transport. Most of the students must cover high costs for their fluvial transportation, making access to education even more difficult. The territory of this municipality is vast (mostly rural) and the dispersion of its population is high (mostly Afro-descendant). Due to this situation, the proposal would initially work with the teachers, students and families of the region of the (Santa Rosa)-Timbiquí. Some data follows to offer a broader context: There were approximately 7,182 students registered in 2019. However, there is no reliable data on the number of students in 2020 given the low presence of the State and the dropout rate that occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic. The seriousness of the problem is evident. The rate of coverage for high-school is 38.81% and the illiteracy rate in Timbiquí reaches 16.3% of the total population. This lack of access to education is also related to factors such as historical patterns of structural racism, the persistence of the armed conflict, and the lack of trained teaching personnel.

This proposal intent to provide a quality learning environment through ethno-education (a pertinent educational model adjusted to the context) to Children and Youth of the extended educational community (students, teachers, parents and leaders of the region) of the Agricultural Technical College in (Santa Rosa)-Timbiquí. Volunteers from the undergraduate programs of teaching and education, and psychology of Icesi University may contribute to teaching-learning processes and psycho-pedagogical and psychosocial support in context through the psychosocial care clinic. To provide these services, we propose the implementation of an Intranet/Internet community network. To assure the sustainability of the initiative in these isolated and remote regions a strong community leading the project and the future operation is required. To achieve this requirement, Colnodo Association and the Icesi University would be in the entire process providing the knowledge transfer and capabilities development training to the community of (Santa Rosa)-Timbiquí. This infrastructure would allow the implementation of a contextualized pedagogical design of remote or hybrid settings in conditions of mobility restrictions during and after the pandemic to meet the identified needs. For a future community accompaniment process, this proposal could be scaled up to the rest of the sub-regions of the municipality of Timbiquí.

Timbiquí is a municipality is a small Afro-descendant dispersed community in an isolated and remote region. Some statistics from 2016 shows a total population of 21.738 inhabitants where 4.310 of that total live in the urban area. However, the solution would serve the extended educational community of Timbiquí (students, teachers, parents, and leaders of the region) of the Agricultural Technical School, located in the rural region of (Santa Rosa)-Timbiquí. The school has 180 students, 15 teachers and the rest of the community in the area. Unfortunately, there is no reliable data to present about the population of this sub-region. 

Timbiquí presents a series of systematic and multiple violence: lack of access to health, education, housing, water, energy, internet, and other basic services elementary for existence. Additionally, it has been a permanent focus of the armed conflict in the country. Another key element in the region's problems is its geographical conditions of isolation allowing only maritime and air transportation. Even within the municipality, many of the students must do so through expensive river transportation to get to school. Also, the COVID-19 pandemic deepened the educational inequity of this territory, leading to the disengagement of students from their educational institutions, due to the difficult access to digital media and lack of technological resources. An initial project called Tejiendo Aprendizajes, coordinated by the Center for Afrodiasporic Studies - CEAF is being executed in the present. This project is part of the Pacific Task Force initiative working in collaboration with the local community and the mayor's office of Timbiquí. This project provided contextualized information of the educational needs included in this proposal. 

By implementing this proposal, we expect to improve the conditions of digital connectivity, academic interaction and psycho-pedagogical support among the different actors of the extended educational community in (Santa Rosa)-Timbiquí. Given the difficult social and transportation conditions to get to their study center, it is expected to support teachers to redesign their courses and properly implement them in remote or personalized and flexible hybrid environments. Additionally, a hybrid setting after the pandemic would benefit the students in Timbiquí due to the mobility limitations by the topography of the region.

This challenge asks about how can all young learners have access to quality, safe, and equitable learning environments and this proposal is about reducing the gaps in access to digital technology to ensure quality education for the 180 students and 15 teachers and their extended educational community (family & community) from a school in the rural area of (Santa Rosa)-Timbiquí-Cauca(Colombia). This solution would articulate a intranet/internet community network, the user devices and the pedagogical redesign for remote and hybrid settings promoting also an autonomous and self-organized community with the technical and administrative competencies for assuring the sustainability of the initiative.

We selected "Growth" as the development stage for the proposal as an integrated solution based on previous successful experiences of the participating organizations. Some of these experiences comprise, the intranet/internet community network in Caldono and Silvia (Cauca), the work with extended academic communities and communities of practices by the professors of the pedagogical and social studies departments in Cali (Colombia), and the pedagogical and psychosocial support in Timbiquí (Cauca) via cellphone offered by the project Tejiendo Aprendizajes. Despite this proposal offering a consolidated service and it has been tested in other communities, the entire design has not yet been tested in an integrated manner in remote and isolated places. As a further growth, this proposal could be scaled up in a future project to the school headquarters in (Puerto Saija)-Timbiquí-Cauca (Colombia), which has approximately 828 students and 20 teachers and other academic communities in the Colombian Pacific region.

We propose the consolidation of an extended academic community (students, teachers, families and social leaders) using an ethno-education perspective seeking to recognize the culture, history, and Afro-descendant ancestry of Timbiquí. The technology-based solution is an intranet/internet community network as an integrating and articulating mechanism for initiatives to reduce the gap in education in remote or hybrid settings. This solution would support the daily activities of learning communities and communities of practice in the region of influence of an agricultural technical school. This proposal requires and promotes higher levels of participation and engagement of the extended academic community which is supported by the participating institutions in technical, pedagogical and administrative aspects allowing them to co-design and co-implement the network and the business model. This rural region, geographically isolated and historically forgotten by the Colombian government and society, requires more collaborative and self-organized initiatives for its sustainable development. Community network initiatives have shown an improved approach to the problem of access and social appropriation ICT in isolated communities embracing collaborative works instead of social assistance projects. This is particularly important in remote regions where the state does not have a strong presence, the government does not have clear plans for social investments, and the private telecommunications sector has no interest in offering services due to low levels of profitability. Additionally, for enabling broader positive impacts, the initiative would be escalated to the entire town and other regions of the Colombian Pacific having this community as ally for further initiatives.

Considering that the proposal will be implemented initially in the Agricultural Technical College (Santa Rosa)-Timbiquí, it is expected to offer the service to 180 students, 15 teachers and the entire community that inhabits the network's coverage territory. Unfortunately, there is no verified population data for that area.

With subsequent processes of expanding the service to other sub-regions of Timbiquí in the next five (5) years, it is expected to be able to offer the service to most of the students in town. In the urban area, there is a registry of students enrolled in 2019 of 7,255, which includes the student population of primary, secondary and technical secondary. These students are distributed in 2 schools with all the educational levels and 6 schools for primary levels. For the rural area, the number of registered young people decreases by 2020 with 4,914 students distributed in 6 schools and 25 small rural schools. The scaling would be carried out following the proposed model and always having as main connection nodes the colleges and schools of the region. This expansion would be carried out taking into account the availability of resources for future calls and the management process of the community itself.

• Number of teachers supported and mentored for pedagogical adaptation, personalized instruction and training for communication with students and their families in remote and hybrid settings.
• % of student participation in remote and hybrid settings
• % of parents' involvement in the activities of the ethno-education strategy.
• Number of psychosocial support sessions to guarantee the safety and mental health of students in cases of crisis, reporting of violence and other situations.
• Number of teachers, students and members of the (Santa Rosa)-Timbiquí community who participate in training and work sessions for the design, construction and maintenance of the Network.

Three full-time staff and 4 part-time staff. Additionally, some hours a week from the professors of the Icesi University as consultants from the following areas: Department of Pedagogies, the Center for Afro-diasporic Studies (CEAF), the Interdisciplinary Center for Digital Transformation (CITRADI) and the Observatory for Women's Equity (OEM).

Team Members (TM):

TM1: Project Coordinator, design and implementation of community networks. Bachelor’s degree in electronics and telecommunications engineering and a postgraduate degree in engineering project management and with master studies in Strategies and Technologies for Development. 

TM2: Advisor in learning processes and appropriation of ICT. Sociologist with experience in accompanying community processes with a focus on gender and capacity building. Main interest in strengthening self-managed processes and strengthening development projects, especially in projects with the use and appropriation of ICT, with rural communities in the country.

TM3: Technological advisor for the implementation of the community network. Systems engineer passionate about communications networks and currently part of Colnodo's Community Networks team.

TM4: Pacific Task Force Manager. Professor of the Department of Social Studies. Master in Social and Political Studies (Icesi University). Degree in History (Universidad del Valle). 

The part-time staff would be students of the masters in research mode of the Faculties of Engineering, Social Sciences and Education.

Consultant professors:

PhD candidate in Studies of Leisure, Culture and Communication for Human Development at the University of Deusto. Social Communicator and Magister in Sociology from the Universidad del Valle. Full-time professor at Icesi University. Head of the Department of Pedagogy. She is part of the University's gender studies program.

Ph.D. in Science, Technology and Society (STS). Université du Québec à Montréal – UQAM, Canada. Director of the Master in Social and Political Science and the Interdisciplinary Center for Digital Transformation (CITRADI). Director of the Information Services Office [CIO] (2005-2013).

The team is made up of equitable participation between men and women who have a long history of work in the Pacific region and with afro-descendant and indigenous communities. Therefore, the solution that is created is oriented to the recognition of the context and their needs. A multidisciplinary team was formed for the development of this solution made up of Colnodo and the Icesi University through their different participating centers and observatories. The daily operation, as well as the different projects in which the Icesi University participates, must follow the guidelines of the equal treatment policy and the educational inclusion policy, which include a commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion.

• https://www.icesi.edu.co/launiversidad/images/La_universidad/estautos_reglamentos/politica-de-igualdad-de-trato.pdf 
• https://www.icesi.edu.co/images/La_universidad/estautos_reglamentos/No_81-POLITICA_EDUCACION_INCLUSIVA.pdf

We are looking for international recognition of the problem that most of the rural and excluded population in Colombia is suffering regarding the access to education. MIT Solve and your Partner Network may provide that visibility to this initiative to provide sound support for creating our network of allies and executing the crowdfunding strategy. We believe that your international network of solvers may also provide new insights about new and better ways to minimize educational gaps in developing countries where the presence of the State and the Government is almost non-existent.

Accessing international partners and global networks of people and institutions willingly to provide support for projects of social transformation presents a main challenge for our institutions. We hope that being part of the MIT solver teams may provide the required capabilities to scale the proposal and offer the benefits to many other people in need in remote and isolated parts of Colombia or other developing countries.

We are interested to have permanent contact with Organizations, MIT Faculty and Solve Members working in similar initiatives. For example, ICT companies such as telecommunications manufacturers, Google Foundation and Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. They could provide guidance of better practices for implementing the networks, and of course technology for the implementation. They could also provide information and potential contacts with similar initiatives in other countries.

We present here the same response to the question “what makes your solution innovative?” considering the potential positive impact on all the people living in the region of influence of the solution that may reduce the migration from rural to urban regions. 

We propose the consolidation of an extended academic community (students, teachers, families and social leaders) using an ethno-education perspective seeking to recognize the culture, history, and afro-descendant ancestry of Timbiquí. The solution is an intranet/internet community network as an integrating and articulating mechanism for initiatives to reduce the gap in education in remote or hybrid settings. For achieving these goals, it requires a community with high levels of participation and engagement which is supported by the participating institutions in technical, pedagogical and administrative aspects allowing them to co-design/co-implement the solution. This rural region, geographically isolated and historically forgotten by the Colombian government, requires more collaborative and self-organized initiatives for its sustainable development. Community network initiatives have shown an improved approach to the problem of access and social appropriation ICT in isolated communities embracing collaborative works instead of social assistance projects. This is particularly important in remote regions where the state does not have a strong presence, the government does not have clear plans for social investments. Additionally, for enabling broader positive impacts, the initiative would be escalated to the entire town and other regions of the Colombian Pacific having this community as ally for further initiatives.

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