From the beginning, TerraClear’s vision for TerraKids has been to reach more than just students but also to reach teachers and educators who can amplify these essential lessons. Last week, TerraKids held its first two-day Teacher Training Workshop in Paksong District, Champasak. TerraKids and the Paksong Ministry of Sports and Education invited teachers from 13 schools that had previously hosted TerraKids programs to join this training. In addition, teachers and representatives from all 10 elementary school districts in Paksong were invited. Altogether there were 34 teachers who participated.
TerraKids Teacher Workshops are designed to be a follow-up to our individual school programs. After holding TerraKids programs in a district, the Education Department is invited to pick a topic from the themes taught during the school programs according to their specific needs. The Education Department in Paksong chose Drug Abuse Prevention as most relevant to their district.
The TerraKids staff led an interactive and participatory training on understanding childhood and brain development, the source and cause of addiction, and looked at what communities can do to be proactive in preventing drug abuse.
During the sessions our staff led the teachers in an exercise comparing the care needed in raising coffee trees to the care needed to teaching and raising children. The teachers from the Bolaven Plateau are almost all from coffee farming backgrounds and it was wonderful to witness how they were able to apply their knowledge of farming to the topic of drug prevention.
Most enjoyable were the different object lessons and games our staff had prepared. The games displayed how the different sectors of society have to work together to protect children. The laughter and creativity made those lessons very memorable.
At the end of the workshop, our sales representatives joined to give the teachers a refresher on how to use and care for the TerraClear filters that had been donated to many of their schools, and to answer any questions the teachers had about the filters.
Thank you to the Education Officials and Elementary Teachers from Paksong for their hard work and faithful service to the children of Laos. Working together we can keep children safe!
