A Los Alamitos High School graduate has initiated the first ever honors program at a high school in Nicaragua.
A Los Alamitos High School graduate has initiated the first ever honors program at a high school in Nicaragua.
Lauren Barrette, a 2006 graduate completed her education at University of Oregon, Clark Honors College in business marketing and then joined the Peace Corps. She was stationed in Nicaragua with the assignment to teach entrepreneurship at the high school level.
It was during these teaching assignments that she noticed something missing that she had always had access to as a student growing up.
“I never realized the great impact that Advanced Placement classes and National Honors Society had on my high school career at Los Alamitos High school until I started my service with the Peace Corps in Nicaragua,” Barrette said. “As an entrepreneurship educator in public schools, I witness low motivation levels and lack of creativity among students. The public schools aim to create a standard and free education for all its students which is great, but one unfortunate side affect is that there is little differentiation between low and high achievers.”
To help address the situation, Barrette decided to take the initiative to start the first Honors Program at the largest public school in Leon, Nicaragua. Her goal: to empower the future leaders and entrepreneurs of this beautiful country to achieve big and dream bigger.
Nicaragua is the second poorest country in the Americas second only to Haiti; however, the country is slowly improving literacy rates and working to develop economically.
Just last week, the Nicaraguan government signed a contract with a private Chinese company to construct The Great Nicaragua Canal mega-project that will be twice as long and significantly wider than the Panama Canal. With Nicaragua’s 18 volcanoes, thermal energy development is also a great potential for the country to become a provider of alternate energy sources.
However, many of these projects rely on foreign investment and the management roles occupied by foreign employees. Nicaragua’s future development depends on educating the youth to be capable of obtaining professional positions before those roles are filled by entrepreneurs from other countries.
Barrette said her goal in starting an honors program in public schools is to open the minds of the brightest yet underprivileged students and give them opportunities that will allow them to develop professionally and be the leaders of Nicaragua. “I had that opportunity at Los Al with AP classes, National Honors Society, Spanish Club, among others. I want to give my Nicaraguan students a similar experience that I was given at Los Al by challenging them academically and promoting collaboration with other like-minded students,” Barrette said.
It took months and months of planning, convincing, and paper-work to establish the first club, but the good news is that every single student who met the qualifications joined the club. Since the founding in May 2013 there have been multiple meetings and enriching activities.
Now that the Honors Club has been established, the current goal is to raise funds to enable the students to go to a leadership camp. This is an adventure camp run by an enterprising Nicaraguan who attended this same public school and has since worked his way up out of poverty to launch his own tour operator business, Eco Camp Expeditions.
With Barrette’s help, the camp program is being augmented to include leadership development, team building, risk-taking and confidence building.
The cost for the week long camp is $200 per person, but Eco Camp offered the camp at a 50 percent discount to the club members.
Currently the students are working hard to earn money themselves, but $100 is a large hurdle for them since many come from poor families who have little to no disposable income.
Another long-term goal is to build cross-cultural connections with one or more honors programs in the U.S., hopefully starting with one at Los Al High School. Students could engage in culture exchanges via email and Skype, use the project to meet community service goals, and perhaps someday have in person cultural exchanges.
For any parties interested in learning more about the cause, please contact Lauren Barrette at Lauren.barrette@gmail.com or visit the website at clubhonores.homestead.com.
