About 90 students and teachers from Mulchén have been trained by the “Ilumina Biobío” program

-The educational project is supported by the Municipality and is developed by AES Chile and Desafío Levantemos Chile. During the first phase, it benefited the teachers and students of three schools in the commune.

December 02, 2021.- AES Chile, Desafío Levantemos Chile and the Municipality of Mulchén have completed the first phase of their educational project “Ilumina Biobío”.

The program, after training, monitoring and evaluating teachers and students, benefited a total of 88 people from schools of Rapelco, San Luis de Malven and Aurora de Enero.

Ilumina Biobío’s main objective is to reduce the digital gaps caused by the pandemic. To this end, the children were provided with tablets and Internet connection chips, and antennas and replicators were set up to strengthen and facilitate classroom access and learning.

The initiative is part of AES Chile’s ongoing commitment to the communities in the area of influence of its projects and seeks to contribute to the development and education of Mulchén’s neighbors in view of the current situation that keeps students away from their classrooms.

“Through this program we seek to close the current digital gaps so that children do not have their learning process interrupted by the social distancing restrictions brought on by this pandemic, because investing in education is the best thing we can do as it involves taking care of our children’s future,” said the Project Community Relations Manager of AES Chile, Javiera Olivares.

The program is based on and divided into two educational pillars aimed at enhancing education: The “Desafío de Aprender” [Learning Challenge], which consists of training, coaching and weekly follow-up for principals, teachers and educational assistants and aims to improve the learning of the curriculum prioritized by the Ministry of Education (Mineduc).

In the meantime, the “Conectado Aprendo” [Connected I Learn] program offered weekly academic follow-up and one-on-one coaching to help students avoid falling behind in their learning.

At the end of the plan, the students presented the projects they had been working on which were focused on the development of reading comprehension and problem-solving skills, as well as communication matters.

In this regard, the executive director of Desafío Levantemos Chile, Nicolás Birrell, stated that “the pandemic has led to a wider digital and educational gap, particularly in rural areas of our country. Children are the future of the next generation, and that is why we want to give them the best tools and the best opportunities to stay on track. This is why we appreciate the huge contribution of AES Chile, which has made it possible to give a great deal of assistance to many teachers and students so that they have a better educational development.”

“I would like to thank all the people who participated in this beautiful challenge that took place all this time. I appreciate and welcome the work done jointly with Desafío Levantemos Chile, AES Chile and our training team. It is always important to work in partnership and together, because when the goals are the same, it is easier and better to achieve them. This happens when we understand that we live in a society that calls on us to work together, as in this case, for the education of our children,” said the mayor of Mulchén, Jorge Rivas.

It should be noted that this fruitful joint work by AES Chile and Desafío Levantemos Chile is part of a partnership that aims to help the communities. For example, in November, health protection supplies were also delivered to the healthcare workers of Tocopilla and Mejillones.

“We are proud of this public-private partnership, where the Municipality of Mulchén played a very important role in the development of this project, allowing us to work with all the schools,” Birrell concluded.