Although it’s normally warm (to English standards) all year round here in Paraguay, the summer months are from December to February and children don’t go to school during this time. Throughout January 2026, we were able to provide a variety of different summer courses for not only the children of Santa Maria but the wider community, all of which have been super successful!
At the start of January we welcomed Doctor Leticia Viana to give a week long seminar on Palliative Care. Leticia is in charge of the Palliative Care Department in Paraguay and was able to find time with her team to come to Santa Maria to share their knowledge on the subject with nurses and carers here.
We were able to use our newly built classroom for the course (see photo). It was a great success and many of the participants are already hoping there will be another similar course in the future.
Of course we had the cursillo too! Every year we provide a preparation course for our English course that year. It is a basic English course which lasts 3 weeks; at the end of those three weeks, the students take an exam, if they pass they get into English classes. This year our volunteers Chiara and Dan taught the course.
We were also able to run an advanced English conversation class this year, which we hope to continue throughout the academic year too. Cameron Woods (bottom right), who is a Peace Corps volunteer, was keen to get involved with some SMEF activities, so started this conversation class, to get to know some of the students and help them practice their English over the holidays.
We always have plenty of children wanting to do summer courses as they have almost 3 months off school. This year we gave 3 courses.
First was a literacy course for children between 4 – 10 years old to give them extra support in reading and writing.
We met twice a week and did activities to such has reading fairy tales, tracing letters, counting and educational games.
Next we had book club, for those old enough to read well (around 8 years old here in Paraguay). This course also happened twice a week during summer and provided a quiet environment for young people to come to read and discuss their books with friends.
We hope to continue this course in tandem with our main English courses because it is important to encourage reading among young Paraguayans.
As always we had our English Children’s course which started at the end of January. This year we had around 80 children sign up, our volunteers, Dan, Chiara and Emilio are currently teaching this course.
We are extremely lucky to be able to run these courses due to the help and dedication of volunteers as well as our supporters in England. These activities were accessible for all and it is clear they helped to make a difference within Santa Maria’s community.
