Job Title: PAL Lesson Program Teachers

Length of Service: 1 or more years

Ministry Vision / Purpose:  The vision is to see children rise higher through partnership and collaboration that empowers leadership and character development at a young age. While not promoted as a Christian program, the values of empowering youth to be examples in their lives, love, faith, speech, and purity is our motivation.

General Description:  Teachers in our lesson program work in partnership with students and national volunteers in an after-school format from 2:30 pm - 8:00 pm four days per week. Lesson planning is a cooperative effort that takes place outside of the lesson time. Students are part of a specific inter-faith community with an age range of 5 years to 16 years of age.  Successful teachers will be those who are flexible and celebrate small steps of progress to the students they teach. Language is a Creole-English which can be a fun challenge! Teaching is an honored position here; children admire teachers and come to learn. Education is viewed as a path to a better life and greater opportunities to advance economically as well.

Requirements:

• A willingness to learn the dialect, cultural openness, and a sense of incarnational ministry are assets.
• Creative skills are helpful.
• Business skills can be used as movement into handcraft and micro-business is projected for the future.
• A professional education background is not necessary, but an ability to teach and a genuine joy of working with children are necessary.
• The ability to be a team player is critical.
• Christians with a desire and calling to reach those of the Hindu and Muslim faiths will find learning opportunities in Guyana.
• The areas of social justice and poverty alleviation are also core principles that are embraced in this context.

Field Background:  Guyana is a land of many waters and many cultures. The population is under one million with the majority living along the coastal plain between the Suriname and Venezuela borders. Mixed ethnic groups add to the diverse landscape. Guyana is a land where Hindu, Islam, Christian, Rastafarian, and Amerindian animism have dwelt comfortably with one another since the beginning. British Guiana became The Republic of Guyana in a progression of events from 1966-1970. Today they represent themselves as a sovereign government on the South American continent and identify with the Caribbean.

Our area of focus is a depressed community comprised of 145 dwellings and around 225 school-age children and youth. It is a diverse assortment of Afro-Guyanese, Amerindian, Indo-Guyanese, and a blend of others.