The COVID-19 pandemic closed their school, but it also thrust a group of disadvantaged Mexican children living next to a giant garbage dump into the digital world.
A project teaching the students how to use computers and the Internet has given them hope of a life far from the trash mountain where their parents work recycling waste.
Miguel Tejeda had never used a computer before COVID-19 arrived, because there were no machines in the 14-year-old’s school in Chimalhuacan, located in the urban sprawl surrounding the capital, New Mexico.
Photo: AFP
However, for the past six months, he and 200 other students aged five to 21 have learned basic IT skills helped by a Mexican non-governmental organization (NGO), using old computers donated by a religious association.
“Learning is much easier with the computers. We have a much better understanding of subjects,” Tejeda said, wearing a mask and face shield.
In a makeshift classroom in an unfinished house, the NGO Utopia taught the students reading, writing and mathematics, as well as how to send files in the PDF format.
The fetid smell of garbage wafted over from the nearby dump.
Mexico, a country of 126 million people, has registered more than 186,000 known COVID-19 deaths — the world’s third-highest toll.
After schools shut, the NGO added digital skills to its educational plan so that the students in the disadvantaged community could continue their studies remotely.
Before the crisis struck, “for us it was more important to teach them to read than to use Word,” Utopia founder Jesus Villalobos said.
The impoverished community is located in one of the most populated and violent municipalities in the country.
The dusty district of Corte Escalerillas, home to about 5,000 people working mainly to collect and separate 12,000 tonnes of garbage a day, has had public lighting and water supplies for barely a year.
Harassed by aggressive dogs, some children help their parents, scavenging for waste that can be recycled.
If they stop studying, “the first thing they do is go collect garbage with a donkey, and there, among the trash, they lose their life plan,” Utopia coordinator Yahir Ruiz said.
“Sometimes the first contact of these children with a computer is at 15 or 16 years old, because the schools were not equipped,” Ruiz added.
About 30 million students in Mexico are not physically going to school because of the pandemic, which prompted the government to start distance-learning via television or the Internet.
According to UNESCO, about one-quarter of Mexican students between the ages of seven and 17 have no Internet access and 4.4 percent have no television.
High-school student Norma Hernandez does not have a computer at home and can only get two channels on her television because of the limited signal.
Her mother recently had the Internet installed so her brother could study online using his cellphone.
“But the signal is so bad here that sometimes it’s impossible to connect,” the 13-year-old said.
The Mexican government has said that schools would reopen only when the risk of infection has dropped sufficiently.
In the meantime, 17-year-old Armando Alvarado said he is no longer daunted by using a computer.
“The first time, when they started teaching me here about computing, I was scared, that I was going to have to take it to pieces or something like that,” said Alvarado, who learned to read at the age of 12 with help from the NGO.
“When they began to teach me everything became easy,” he said.
The Australian government yesterday said that it had decided against buying the single-dose Johnson & Johnson (J&J) COVID-19 vaccine and identified a second case of a rare blood clot likely linked to the AstraZeneca shot. The Australian government had been in talks with the New Jersey-based pharmaceutical giant, which had asked the Australian Therapeutic Goods Administration for provisional registration. However, Australian Minister of Health Greg Hunt ruled out a J&J contract, because its vaccine was similar to the AstraZeneca product, which Australia had already contracted for 53.8 million doses. Hunt said the government was following the advice of Australia’s scientific and technical advisory
The Indonesian government has said it is satisfied with the effectiveness of the Chinese COVID-19 vaccine it has been using, after China’s top disease control official said that current vaccines offer low protection against the novel coronavirus. Siti Nadia Tarmizi, a spokesperson for Indonesia’s COVID-19 vaccine program, on Monday said the WHO had found that the Chinese vaccines had met requirements by being more than 50 percent effective. Clinical trials in Indonesia for the vaccine from Chinese drugmaker Sinovac showed that it was 65 percent effective, she said. “It means ... the ability to form antibodies in our bodies is still very
The Oscars are the glitziest night of the year in Hollywood and millions across the globe tune in, but they threaten to be a dud in China after the nomination of a Hong Kong protest documentary. Beijing-born filmmaker Chloe Zhao (趙婷), who is touted to win big for her acclaimed American road movie Nomadland, has also faced criticism back home after some questioned her loyalty to China. China has spent years “pining for Hollywood accolades,” entertainment magazine Variety said, and state broadcaster China Central Television has shown the awards live or on a delay since 2003. Online platforms in China, the world’s fastest-growing
FEARING THE WORST: High-powered weapons, as well as a hand grenade, were used in fighting between two clans over a land ownership dispute that is expected to continue Police are warning an “all-out war” could erupt in Papua New Guinea’s Eastern Highlands Province, after 19 people were killed in tribal violence last week. High-powered weapons, as well as a hand grenade, were used in fighting on Thursday and Friday near a town called Kainantu, resulting in 19 deaths, with many more people unaccounted for and properties destroyed. The fighting, between the Agarabi and Tapo clans, was over a land ownership dispute and broke out just kilometers outside of Kainantu. Police said it is believed that the fighting stopped on Saturday and Sunday as some fighters observed the Sabbath, but they fear
RSS