Over the past three years, through our Monitoring and Evaluation Program, our team has noticed that while enrollment in school is high in the five mountain villages that we work with, regular attendance rates are often lower in most villages. One likely reason for this is that many of these semi-nomadic families move to the high pastures in the summer to shepherd their flocks. It seems that increasingly women and children travel with the men, more so than they had been in the past. Our team has been working with village elders and teachers to learn more about this change and to think creatively about solutions.
One such solution involved piloting two mobile tent schools to travel into the high pastures with two villages this summer. Two village teachers and five young emerging local leaders in our partner organization travelled into the high pastures carrying tents and school supplies on donkeys. They lived among these families in the high pastures for two months and provided daily classes and tutoring for 70 students in ‘tent schools’. The young leaders focused on continuing to build relationships and trust among the nearly 400 community members.
Our team and village leaders evaluated the project and the response was very positive. Our team is planning to offer mobile tent schools for additional remote villages in the future.
