(Caracas, December 4, 2009) — The AME course called Education, Human Development and Overcoming Poverty offers elementary school teachers the knowledge and the necessary tools to help become agents of change. By means of their work in the classroom, in schools and the local community, they can contribute to improving levels of human development with the objective of overcoming poverty among school population and the communities where children and adolescents live.
This AME course, an innovative educational program of the Fundación Cisneros, has emerged as a result of the commitment of governments and states worldwide to overcome poverty and improve human development indexes in the 21st century. During the course, teachers get to know the multifaceted nature of poverty, its root causes and strategies that can be developed from school, together with the surrounding communities, to overcome patterns of poverty and optimize quality of life.
Thus, the teacher assumes a critical position regarding his/her own role, and ponders what his/her role should be in order to create wealth and not become a participant in poverty. This course was designed with the support of the University Cayetano Heredia of Peru.
The second course AME offers this quarter is Reading and Writing, which is especially designed for teachers to acquire tools to improve the teaching and learning processes, and create strategies to develop effective pedagogical work in this area. This course is overseen by the University Javeriana of Colombia.
Nearly a thousand teachers from Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru, the Dominican Republic and Venezuela are involved in both of the courses which will finish in January 2010.
The AME teaching-learning strategy’s principal feature is interactivity. Teachers can access classes online and participate in virtual classroom activities on the AME website. They can also receive tutorials, support guides, access discussions, perform self-evaluations, and -- in addition to communicating with the AME management team – receive university-level and other instruction from throughout the hemisphere.
About AME
AME (Actualización de Maestros en Educación) is an interactive online continuing professional development program for primary school teachers in Latin America. Through various partnerships with the public and private sectors of the countries that have implemented the program, AME offers courses and educational television programs free of charge for teachers to improve their teaching skills in relevant subjects such as information and communication technologies in schools, didactical training in language arts, mathematics, health education, HIV/AIDS prevention, environmental awareness, ethics, among others. The program also contributes to the development of teamwork skills with other teachers and the use of professional networks to access information from colleagues and experts to support professional development.
About Fundación Cisneros
The Fundación Cisneros is a private, non-profit institution established by Patricia Phelps de Cisneros and Gustavo Cisneros, and currently led by Adriana Cisneros de Griffin, in order to strengthen the social fabric, promote freedom of expression and democratic thought, encourage economic progress and strengthen understanding among Latin American nations. Its mission is to improve education in Latin America while promoting global awareness about the region's contributions to world culture, as well as channeling and structuring the Corporate Social Responsibility programs of the Cisneros Group. The strategy of the Fundación Cisneros is to establish partnerships with local organizations and use the information and communication technology platform of the Cisneros Group to develop educational, cultural and corporate social responsibility programs.