E-ROQ Project Inc.

Venezuela is among the top 10 most biodiverse countries in the world which by default makes it the perfect nest for tourism development. In some places, such as the Archipelago Los Roques there are more than 70,000 yearly visitors. Most of them are foreigners that speak English. However, in this Archipelago, only 9 people out of 2,000 residents speak the language. Furthermore, difficult access communities such as this one do not have the necessary tools and people to provide proper education to their offspring.  We realized that there is a communication barrier with tourists and that people in these communities have fewer job opportunities because of their deficient educational foundation.

To address this situation we developed an English program that is demographically adapted and includes 3 transversal pillars: Tourism, conservancy, and Citizen values. Our purpose is to offer educational opportunities otherwise unavailable in remote communities to encourage their development.

The Archipelago Los Roques is the largest marine park in the Caribbean receiving approximately 70,000 tourists per year (under normal circumstances), according to the Venezuelan Tourism Ministry, 60% of which are non-Spanish speaking. This place is home to more than 2,000 residents of which only 9 speak English fluently. In fact, Venezuela is positioned 15 out of 19 in the Latin-American ranking of English proficiency. Additionally, only 1 Kindergarten and 1 Elementary school exist in Gran Roque (main island) for all the children (approximately 500) from the Archipelago. Local teachers do not own an educational degree and never had the opportunity to learn English, thus this language is not contemplated in their syllabus.

Lack of quality education has meant fewer job opportunities since business owners in the hospitality industry mainly hire people from urban areas to manage their hotel industries. Roqueños rely on fishing as a source of income, which is having a negative impact on the park’s ecosystem.

Furthermore, the Archipelago is home to many watersport professionals. However, the communication barrier between them and the international community makes it difficult to pursue bigger (international) dreams.

The same problem exists in other Venezuelan destinations with immense touristic potential.

E-ROQ develops demographically adapted English curricular designs based on three main pillars: tourism, environmental conservation, and citizenship values. It sends bilingual volunteer instructors (normally higher education students previously equipped with teaching skills) to rural locations on a weekly basis. Our instructors prepare the material to be taught beforehand depending on the group, unit, and age. A follow-up is then done through WhatsApp, where short videos made with Powtoon and digital simplified homework (that can be filled by WhatsApp coloring tool) are sent and then received and reviewed by our teachers once completed by students. 

Currently, our project serves Los Roques community. Allocated 128km away from the continental territory. Tourism is the leading source of income in the region representing 74% of the local economy. Its population size is approximately 2,000 residents. Local educational institutions are unable to teach a second language to the population due to four fundamental challenges: 1) Lack of technical knowledge (i.e. bi-lingual skills at the local level), 2) Limited infrastructure (i.e. schools, transportation, and educational materials) to support educational formation, 3) Limited basic services (restricted potable water and electricity), and 4) Unreliable internet access and connectivity. 

Our president was a rural doctor in this location in 2018 and became part of the community. He was the only public employee capable of communicating in English serving as a translator for the vast majority of its people, assisting in castaway rescues as an interpreter, and helping informal workers to communicate with international visitors. Seeing this communication necessity, he built a team, and in conjunction with Universidad Metropolitana, a demographic English syllabus was created to teach children and young workers in the public local school. Our project relies on capacity building. We send bilingual higher education volunteers (previously trained for 12 weeks in education and pedagogy, social psychology, child psychology, tourism, conservation, and citizenship values) to Los Roques to teach the language as well as technology use for follow up. We aim to increase literacy and competencies in this underserved area so Roqueños have an equal background to compete for job opportunities in highly desirable hospitality charges, enabling them to generate income, develop the Archipelago and diversify Venezuela's economy through sustainable tourism.

E-ROQ is an educational project with a hybrid methodology (in-person and remote learning strategy). We focus on teaching our beneficiaries not only in the learning of a new language but also introduce them to technology in a responsible manner. We do so by using human capital from urban areas to capacitate rural communities on a second language and technology usage, increasing their employment opportunities in the tourism sector and preparing them for the modern age since our mission is to guarantee quality education access to underserved Venezuelans destinations, thus promoting community development with demographically adapted strategies.

At the present moment we have been working for more than two years with Los Roques public school ages range 7-14 (fully implemented). Following our work on social media, indigenous people from Canaima (Amazon jungle), Adicora´s community (in Falcón) and Apartaderos community leader (Andes Mountains) reached us requesting us to bring a similar project to them. 

We are currently the only NGO in Venezuela teaching English to highly touristic hard-to-reach communities. Our curricular design is demographically adapted to each of them, the topics taught at the public schools are focused on citizenship values, environmental conservation, and tourism specifically for the locality where we are serving. For example, in Los Roques, we teach about the marine ecosystem and how to take care of it, at the same time providing the young population of Los Roques with the tools to inform and commerce with international visitors.

Furthermore, part of our marketing strategy uses influencers as a way of expanding our outreach not only nationally, but at an international level as well. This helps us communicate the organization’s vision, the impact we are having with the kids and promote tourism, making this a comprehensive strategy that seeks to diversify Venezuela´s economy by tourism development in rural destinations.

Our initial business model did not rely heavily on technology. However, after the pandemic, we had to come up with a strategy that allowed us to keep providing education to our children in Los Roques, who were not attending school because of safety reasons but also were not being homeschooled since local teachers did not know how to proceed with the situation, for which we came up with a WhatsApp remote learning strategy. WhatsApp is a worldwide mass communication tool that people in Venezuela know how to use, regardless of their location. Although not intended for teaching, we came up with new uses for settings that are normally heavily underused, for example, the WhatsApp coloring tool. This feature allowed our children to complete their English homework while practicing their fine motor skills and creativity. When they delivered their homework we created stickers as a receipt and for evaluation, we used different emojis in virtual diplomas. Additionally, for new content teaching, we created cartoon-ish educational videos through Powtoon, a platform similar to a combination of PowerPoint and MovieMaker which allowed us to continue our lessons in a regular fashion. This inspired local teachers to adopt our strategy as a homeschooling mechanism. 

On an ending note, recently we partnered up with LearnKernel who provided us with digital devices similar to a simple GameBoy for remote learning that we will be implementing and evaluating in September in the Archipelago.

For our remote learning strategy to work and considering the demographics we provide service to, we had to use a technological resource that is simple, available, easy to use, and familiar to the user. The most readily available app that every adult in Latin America and Europe uses is WhatsApp, a mass communication tool. Through the strategy explained above, we guaranteed education to students whose parents had access to a smartphone. We are attaching a Youtube video made in Powtoon as an example of our content: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Since approximately half of our student body live in extreme poverty conditions and do not own a smartphone, we made an alliance with LearnKernel which we also mentioned before. They created a low-cost digital device for remote learning in which we can upload our content and donated 35 of these tools to us, which will be handed to our students to see their lessons in a remote manner (children who live in different islands of the archipelago, do not own smartphones or have unreliable connectivity) under our instructor's guidance. We will start evaluating this new method in September. Below you will find the link to their website which explain more extensively and has videos on how it works: https://www.learnkernel.com

Additionally, in the following question of impact measurement regarding our KPIs (impact goals) 70% of our remaining 2020 students who had access to technology pass their final first 10 unit test and progressed to the next level.

Because of the lack of technological infrastructure in these communities students ask and use the same phones or tablets as their parents, which creates security and privacy issues. One of the most important responsibilities E-ROQ has is to teach safe handling of these electronic gadgets. Also, inevitably by using their parents' phones, children will get in touch with social media content which can become very harmful if we don’t create awareness over the use of these platforms. 

Our main focus apart from teaching a new language to our students is to introduce them to new forms of technology and help them understand how to operate them. We teach them the safe usage of such devices, especially for educational purposes and alert them on how to protect themselves in the online world.

Another threat we are concerned about is cultural extinction, globalization leads to the adoption of trends common for masses. On the contrary, tourism gets its greater benefits through intercultural exchange. The unique features of each culture are one of the most important reasons visitors decide to travel to a specific destination. That is the reason why we decided to create a demographically adapted curricular designs for each different Venezuelan region we provide lessons to, so they are able to share their particular culture in a different language and prevent them from losing their roots in this ever more evolving world.

Nowadays, we are serving 68 children in Los Roques enrolled in the program. However, the community we serve is composed of 2000+ people.

This year we will be doubling our student body in Los Roques and also start serving indigenous people in Canaima (Amazon jungle), planning to start with 60 students as well. The total number of residents is around 2.200+. If financially possible we already have demand in Adicora (coastal region) composed of a total population of 3500 people and Apartaderos (Andes Mountains) 3500 inhabitants and we will start with a pilot group of 60 students each.

In five years we hope to be serving at least five communities, having a student body of 500-600 students but having a direct impact over the families of our students which would be 10.000+ people living in rural destinations, through quality education of their offspring.

We are projecting that in 5 years some of our current students who finish the 4 levels of English reaching B1 of our curricular design will become resident instructors of E-ROQ within the community, empowering them to teach their own communities and reducing the necessity of transporting external instructors from Caracas-Los Roques each week. 

Simultaneously, our subsequent projects:

• 2-3 Years: would be to expand to other locations requesting our service (Adicora, Apartaderos, and Canaima) which will be explained in more detail in later questions.

• 3-5 years: Improve connectivity on Gran Roque, due to the multiple communication difficulties demonstrated during the pandemic. In remote communities, the lack of technology aggravated education access in rural settings. According to UNICEF, up to 13,000,000 children in Latin America and the Caribbean (including some of our students) did not have access to distance education. This year we will be providing devices for remote learning that do not rely on connectivity to function to Roqueños which is a cost-effective measure, supplying and assisting the literacy demand.

Furthermore, Roqueños demanded local authorities for our organization to become the official provider of English education in the Archipelago. In response to their needs, we contacted local authorities and requested a physical space to build educational infrastructure to provide our service as the first official English school in the territory. The initial proposal was to rescue local spaces that are not being used, re-enabling them for the community with conservation-based construction. This project probably will take more than 5 years.

The impact measurement process is structured according to the beneficiaries. For the students, we designed a two-step evaluation process. We apply three English evaluation tests per academic year to measure their performance before and after level. Additionally, we conduct a survey at the beginning and at the end of the academic year to measure their habits in regards to environmental sustainability, community involvement, and relationship with their homeland. We record pivotal demographic data to measure our possible impact on community behavior. 

Our ongoing study indicated that by 2019:

• We were impacting 18% of the student body (elementary to middle school).  

• 79,3% of our beneficiaries help their parents with their jobs. 

• 47,5% have worked in fishing, 13,6% in inns, 23,7% in boat transportation, and 3,4% in coordinating tourist activities. 

• 41,6% manifested to not understand concepts of recycling and reusing.  

• 50,7% consume endangered marine species from the area even though 88,1% stated that they understand the concept of endangered species. 

• In regards to their professional aspirations, 28.8% desire to become inn operators, 13.6% travel agency owners, and 27.1% fishermen. Other professions mentioned were kitesurfers, marine biologists, and pilots.

• 79,3% of the beneficiaries participate in the organization of the communities’ activities, and 100% showed a high frequency of attendance.

In academic aspects:

• 94% of our students approved their first trimestral test pre-pandemic made by Universidad Metropolitana.

• 70% of our remaining students of 2020 approved the first-year level final exam with our hybrid (remote/in-person strategy) despite the pandemic according to Universidad Metropolitana.

Our team is conformed by:

1. Board of Directors: 5 people
2. Executive Committee: 11 Coordinators
3. Full-Time Volunteers: 28 
4. Part-Time Volunteers: 15

All our staff are volunteers

After residing as a rural doctor in Los Roques, our president was able to see and experience firsthand the challenges faced by the community, which relies heavily on international tourism but hardly speaks any English. Our organization was then created with the goal to promote the local development of the region and enhance the livelihoods of its inhabitants by raising the educational level in Los Roques, taking into consideration the specific needs and challenges faced by the community. In this sense, our three pillars (tourism, environmental conservation, and citizenship values) have guided our efforts in both our volunteers’ capacitation process and the classes we give to the community. 

E-ROQ is integrated by a diverse team of college-educated volunteers, with experience in different areas and an advanced English level. Their backgrounds in different professions such as Medicine, Mass Communications, Economics, among others, have been key in helping our organization be successfully managed and reach other isolated communities in Venezuela, to continue expanding our impact across the country. All our volunteers go through a 4-month training process in which local experts of areas related to our pillars provide them with capacitation on these subjects.

Furthermore, the syllabus designed to impart classes in Los Roques is demographically adapted to the island. This syllabus, developed along with the Universidad Metropolitana, centers around our pillars while taking into consideration local aspects that are part of our students’ daily reality and culture.

Our commitment to diversity, inclusion, and equity begins at E-ROQ’s selection process. By having competence-based recruitment, we narrow the selection of our volunteer staff, to skill, experience, and knowledge. 

Our leadership team is composed of 11 coordinators, 10 out of which are female. Our volunteer staff’s ages range from 18 to 60, their backgrounds, socio-economic situations, and interests are quite different.

Since we are committed not only to teach our students values but to live them within the organization, the Human Resource Team is in charge of managing any unwanted situation where justice, diversity, or inclusion are not regular. 

To strengthen the previous, our internal rules prohibit any kind of harassment, racism, or unjust treatment due to race, age, gender, religion. 

We as an organization will strive to teach these communities how to use technology in a responsible manner and for educational purposes.

Additionally, since the majority of their residents lack the necessary infrastructure in regards to technological devices. Our plan is to introduce them to new forms of education through remote learning and the use of simple electronic devices for their learning processes. Recently, we made an alliance with LearnKernel. They provided us with a prototype American educational low-cost device to introduce our digital content in one place that can be handed to people who are unable to afford smartphones, it is specially designed for rural areas. We received 35 of these devices for a pilot program that will be introduced in September in Los Roques. 

In order to guarantee access to quality education for free with these new technological strategies, we need to guarantee the proper use of such resources. Combining our virtual lessons with in-person capacity-building sessions is what's most effective in rural areas according to the results we obtained by reviewing our remote learning strategy during the pandemic and comparing it to in-person teaching (see education section in management report 21) https://eroqproject.com/our-ma...

By sending volunteers to the places we teach, we personalized our strategy and create bonds that motivate them to be more open to learning through technology as well as more capable of using it responsibly. We hope that with the TPrize we can finally give these communities a new way to enter this technological era.

1. Operational costs for expansion: As previously exposed in a summarized manner, our operational costs are elevated since it involves constant traveling. Alliances with airlines to these destinations are not viable since CONVIASA (the only local airline that travels to most of the destinations we teach) is an airline with deep governmental ties. We have been trying to pact an agreement with them since the beginning of our operations given the fact we provide free quality education access to otherwise unattended populations, but the economic and political interest comes before their social interest, thus we have been bound to pay the complete fees for the plane tickets of our volunteer instructors. Lower operational traveling costs will accelerate exponentially the outreach of our project. Since that is not possible, the alternate way to surpass this challenge is through gathering more income and finding more investors willing to afford travel expenses.

2. Fellowship and guidance over technology implementation for educational purposes: Although we try our best to keep ourselves updated with new technological trends for teaching, we could benefit from having experts recommending new mechanisms to implement in rural communities. As citizens of a third-world country, there are several nuances of the technologically developed world that we are not aware of, and having experts in technology recommending tools for remote teaching would ultimately translate into greater benefits to our beneficiaries.

Foreign educational institutions. We as an organization already have an established partnership with local universities such as Universidad Metropolitana, Universidad Católica Andrés Bello, and others. They help us update and evaluate the English Curriculum to the communities we provide service to. 

Since we have Venezuelan volunteers in higher institutions in the developed world, we hope to achieve alliances with these institutions such as MIT, Harvard University, Georgetown University among others. We hope they can help us in regards to remote teaching methods and guidance/recommendations to update our curriculum.

At the same time, we hope to create allegiances with more commercial partners in order to achieve financial sustainability. Some of these commercial partners will help us sustain our social endeavor over time.

We also hope to achieve a partnership with digital teaching platforms such as Open English and DuoLingo. We believe these companies have the best platform when it comes to Online Language Education and can teach us better ways to apply our teaching strategies.