By: Leydi
Vidal, Diana Montaño, Lisbeth Vallecilla, Patricia
Murillo, Milena Ordoñez, and Castriela Hernández
The Harriet Tubman
Scholarship program began as an effort of a group of 6 female alumni of the
Martin Luther King (MLK) Jr. program, who worked with 34 students a
teachers to complete the first, second and third cycles of English learning
with excellent outcomes and new ideas to improve the program’s quality.
After the results obtained
with this ASOUSA-sponsored project, the alumnae felt the necessity to conform a
legally registered NGO named ACOHATUB for the empowerment of the Afro-Colombian
community.
This report shows the methodology, outcomes and conclusions of this program in
the words of its implementers.
Even though, Colombia
has always been a multicultural country, only since the 1991 Political
Constitution, the Colombian state recognized cultural diversity as part of its
nationality. One of the main objectives of this regulation is to promote
respect toward the different ethnic groups that are part of our country and to
protect their diverse customs.
Since one of the
missions of education is to promote a general and objective understanding of
the world without leaving out the subjective perspectives, customs, beliefs and
ways of life of each ethnic group as part of its social and integration
program, the Ministry of National Education has regulated the Cátedra de
Estudios Afro -Colombians which promotes the construction of interculturality
within and from educational institutions.
Since then, it has
focused on the recognition and worth of the multiculturalism and particularly,
on the presence of political, economic, socio-cultural, scientific, academic
and artistic contributions of Afro-Colombian, Black, Palenquera and Raizal
populations to the formation of the Colombian society.
Doing a deep research,
these experts realized that it is essential to reconstruct the learning
materials used to teach students, since; some of them create and reinforce the
negative stereotypes some students have on Afro descent people. For
instance, when teaching about the African slavery, it is necessary to go beyond,
not simply portraying the slavery routes but showing the different processes
African people went through before and during they were kidnapped and sold
around the world, as well as after their emancipation. In other words, it is
important to teach how African people used to live before slavery, including
their religions, rituals, languages, politics, educational system, structures,
hierarchies, problem solving, their inventions, forms of resistance, and their
contribution to the formation of their society and the world-wide society in
general.
Every teacher should
make a self reflection on the way they are teaching their students and the way
their students are getting the messages they are conveying, in order to avoid
producing and reproducing stereotypes. We need a real intercultural
education where nobody; students, teachers, directives, family and the society
in general will not discriminate or be discriminated by their age, ethnic
group, sexual orientation and political and religious choice.
Regarding the Afro Colombian,
the Afro North American and the general Afro descent movement around the world,
we still keep some of the African customs, traditions and ways of life, passed
down from generation to generation. Unfortunately, for many people, it is not
as deep as they wish it was, but it may still be sufficient to let them rebuild
their history.
Even though, it was
difficult for the group of people involved in the complete process of
constructing the whole Cátedra de Estudios Afrocolombianos’ proposal, after a
lot of hard work, some schools in Bogotá are now attempting to implement
it. But it has not been an easy process since teachers do not have
extensive knowledge about Afro Colombian issues. In addition, a big problem
some teachers face when teaching about Afro Colombian culture is that in
Colombia there are not enough written material, publications, investigations,
and educational spaces where these topics are stated and discussed.
This project was a
proposal to target a group of Afro Colombian university students interested in
learning English so that in the future they may apply to programs from the U.S.
Embassy in Colombia. Through this project we will offer a set of English
fundamental strategies, tools and knowledge which will expand, assure and
increase their possibilities of getting scholarships like we did.
Since we were Martin
Luther King Scholarship fellows, most of us have had the opportunity to expand
our possibilities and capacities to seek and gain access to different fields in
postgraduate and master´s scholarships in several countries. We have been
working hard on improving our English and leadership skills, consequently, we
have got a greater professional qualification to lead and contribute in an
active and effective way to the development of our Afro Colombian communities.
In this sense, we consider that this program will contribute positively in the
development of the Bogota Regional Chapter, since, it lets us restart,
articulate and consolidate the leadership processes among the ex-Martin Luther
King Scholarship fellows and at the same time, this program will generate in other
Afro Colombian students greater expectations in getting scholarships offered by
the United States of America.
The fellows had to be
Afro Colombian university students with the particular intention of
improving the Afro Colombian communities’ lives. To select these students, we
evaluated two essays about their English background, the work carried out into
their communities and their performance in an interview that permitted to know
their potential of being an Afro Colombian leader.
As a result, 30 students
were selected, between 18 and 30 years old, from different universities:
Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Universidad Distrital, Francisco Jose Caldas
Santander, Universidad Pedagogica de Colombia, Colegio Mayor de Cundinamarca
and Corporacion Jhon F. Kennedy.
The program was
developed with three courses, two for second level and one which emphasizes on
students who need more work to develop the course’s contents. The Colombo-American Center let us use two
classrooms and some didactic materials necessary for the classes such as
markers, paper, games, books and videos and the Tayrona auditorium where the
leadership sessions took place.
Because this course had
an emphasis on forming integrated leaders who work for the prosperity and
empowerment of their own communities, one of the most challenging and
interesting activities we worked on was reading the book “Who was Martin Luther
King, Jr.”. This reading stated Martin´s life since he was a child until he was
killed, going through all the activities he carried out in order to
overcome the big storm the Afro North American community was living
in that moment.
What students admired
the most was that despite all the racism they were suffering, all the physical
and psychological mistreatment they were experiencing and the overwhelming fear
they always stayed together, fought together, and achieved their goals
together. One of the messages this book conveyed was that unity,
fraternity and alliance is what everyone needs to triumph over any difficult
situation.
Not all the students
were familiar with the Jim Crow laws, so we emphasized on that and discussed
about why these regulations were established not only in the United States but
in other countries around the world, the causes and consequences on the
different ethnic groups and the relationship between them.
First of all, students
brainstormed some ideas on what they thought the book was about taking into
account what they knew about the USA civil rights movement and the main leaders
who participated actively in that fight. Then, we looked at the pictures
the book had and matched them with what the students had brainstormed. After
that, one by one read the book by taking turns and identified the sentences
written in past. While reading, the teacher took advantage to correct the
mistakes they made. Subsequently, students discussed the reading and
shared their opinions on it. Finally, to assess the activity, students
underlined all the verbs they found in past.
The first Leadership Workshop Harriet Tubman
Fellows was organized on December 10th, 2011 at District
University Francisco José de Caldas. At that time the professor Agustin
Lao-Montes led the conference. Professor Agustin Lao-Montes has a PhD in
Sociology from the State University of New York at Binghamton. His fields of
specialty include: world-historical sociology and globalization, political
sociology (especially social movements, & sociology of state and
nationalism), social identities & social inequalities, sociology of race
and ethnicity, urban sociology/community-university partnerships, African
Diaspora and Latino Studies, sociology of culture and cultural studies, and
contemporary theory and postcolonial critique. He is a member of the
Red-Institute for Global Democratization (NIGD), the Inter-American Observatory
Control for Immigrant Rights (OCIM), the Hemispheric Council of the WSF and the
collective colonialist / modernity / decolonialist.
In his leadership workshop, the professor made
a presentation about the future of social movements of Afro descendents in the
United States and Latin America and also, he presented some outcomes on his
research about the Ethnography of multilateral institutions and its policies
towards the countries of Latin America. Then, the professor Lao spoke with the
fellows and Harriet Tubman teachers about the importance of learning a second
language.
Later on, he congratulated the Harriet Tubman
group for its interest and engagement to learn English and he invited them to
use their knowledge to help Afro Colombian young people who did not have the
same opportunities.
Finally, the professor
Agustin Lao-Montes said that the project Harriet Tubman was a very important
window to articulate the learning English with the ancient knowledge of the
African descent.
Some of the outcomes
of the program are:
1. The Harriet Tubman
Blog
The idea was to create a
space where students could share ideas and practice with their partners through
the web. Here students find activities, recommended links, songs, videos,
photos and anything else that teacher consider important to the learner process
of the students.
Currently the page is
under construction at:
2.
English Club
Since for a long time there has not been ant English club in the Colombo
where students used to develop the skills that they are learning in their
classes, we opened a special English Club called Harriet Tubman, through which
students talk about ethnic issues, and watch movies and documentaries about it
too.
The Harriet Tubman
English club takes place on Tuesday mornings and Friday afternoons. The
participants have to write their full names in a list every week in order to
have the record. The students watch some documentaries and short movies about
ethnic topics and they read short articles about these topics in order to give
their opinion in the different discussions.
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