In mid-June, the ‘Learning to Live Together‘ Program of the Ministry of Education, executed in the region by the University of Magallanes (UMAG), began its support work in the municipality of Cabo de Hornos. At the Bicentennial Admiral Donald MacIntyre Griffiths High School in Puerto Williams, program professionals met with the school’s coexistence team, laying the groundwork for a plan focused on supporting and strengthening actions that promote well-being within their educational community.
For Alejandra Montaña Ojeda, in charge of School Coexistence and support teacher of the Pedagogical Technical Unit (UTP) at the High School, “given the characteristics of our institution, especially in the geographical aspect, having support or accessing external aids is challenging. And this program provides us with that opportunity, to enhance our talents and the work we do for the benefit of our community.”
In this regard, the professional highlighted that the work is focused “on our needs, and not on the generalities of the school system,” and in that sense, “the support team has been very respectful in considering our reality and giving it the appropriate relevance.” She valued that the program allows for the consideration of experiences, life stories, and the formation of the context in which they are embedded.
Psychologist and municipal coordinator of the executing team, Pamela Hernández Villegas, commented that these initial meetings allowed them, together, “to review the dimensions of coexistence they have worked on, which they see as more strengthened, which they see need more strengthening, and from there, we generated an initial proposal, which is a task we took with us and with which we have to work so that, at the beginning of the second semester, they can, as a team, present a consultation to the teaching staff on how we could continue this work.”
According to the professional, the idea is that this consultation can open up topics of conversation and begin to work from the dialogue that arises from the concerns of the teachers, in order to later expand it to other areas of the High School, “because our final interest,” she emphasized, “is always to extend to the entire educational community, so that decisions are not made only behind closed doors but include more stakeholders.