Access to a Future

This is an op-ed piece I wrote at the request of someone at the embassy and I figured anyone who has followed this blog might like to read it, too:

One of the unexpected benefits of service in the Peace Corps here in Nicaragua is the opportunity to observe other U.S. government development programs operating in my small part of this poor country.  There are USAID initiatives, embassy-sponsored agricultural projects, and all kinds of internet education possibilities, but the program closest to my heart here is Access, a program which provides free, intensive English education to poor but motivated Nicaraguan students. One of those students is Einer.

I met fifteen year old Einer the first week I arrived on site to begin my work as an English teacher and teacher trainer.  Every day he sought me out, asking about the meanings of English words and expressions.  Nicaraguan students wear uniforms to school and for this reason it is sometimes hard to know how they fit in the socio-economic picture, but Einer’s mom, who came to school for a parent event, let me know.  He is among the poorest students at the school. The family lives on about $40. per month in a community a distance from the high school.  Their adobe house is without electricity.  Einer’s mom hauls water from a community well for bathing and laundry.  However, someone gave Einer a Spanish/English dictionary, his prized possession.  Einer’s mom told me that he studies it as late as he can every night, looking up new words and trying to pronounce them.  “Me encanta el inglés,” said Einer.

After the first year in site I volunteered to teach at a week-long camp sponsored by the Access program and there I learned that Access offers classes in many cities in Nicaragua.  Students apply to the program, submitting personal essays and electricity bills, the latter I think as an indication of family financial status. If accepted, they study two hours a day, five days a week for two years with an excellent Nicaraguan English teacher.  The classes are held entirely in English, as is the camp which students can attend once during their two year course.   The students I met at camp were amazing for their ability to communicate in English.  The Access approach obviously worked.

Back in my site I received word that Access was opening a new program in a city a half hour bus ride from Einer’s community.  I told him and four other eager students about the classes.  They applied and were accepted. Most Access students live in the cities where the classes are given.  But my students lived in outlying communities.  It would cost about $7.00 a week each to get to and from classes, something my students could not pay.  When I explained the problem, Access found a small fund from which it could pay the transportation cost.

Einer and his classmates have been faithfully going to class. After just six months of Access instruction, Einer speaks  only English with me now.  His fluency is so good and his pronunciation so clear that he outstrips the abilities of most of the English teachers in the high school he attends.  His story is a lesson in motivation, but also in the efficacy of well conceived and executed government programs.  “I love the United States,” says Einer.