We are very pleased to welcome you to this edition of our bimonthly newsletter.

Many things have happened since the integration of the initial team of Via Education. The number of projects, their scope and influence has increased, and an extraordinary team of researchers has been consolidated.

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- The debate is open, how to improve and maintain the validity of the democratic system that our countries now enjoy? how to expand social citizenship? how to reduce poverty and inequality that remain as the great stain and threat to this democratic system? how to extend the policy? or how to recover the public debate and participation of the people? -

Ideas and contributions: Democracy in Latin America, UNDP 2004.

This year, Ernesto Schiefelbein (Chile) has become the first person from the international community to receive the "Alumni Award for Outstaning Contribution to Education" at Harvard Graduate School of Education.

The rural community of “El Aguaje” from the San Cristobal de las Casas municipality has started a democratic participatory process.thought the secondary school.Last January, teachers from this small school that has only 80 students were par of the training of participatory methodology. This methodology search to develop citizenship competences through out the semester.

This secondary school is located in a highly marginalized zone. It was selected because it had a very good results in the Enlace Test 2008. The school´s principal, Gerardo Marcelin committed himself to implement the methodology and to engage the whole educational community in order to implement with success the projects that will be suggested by the students.

It was according to their "usos y costumbres" (practices) in the tzotil indigenous from los Altos the Chiapas that parents from the school were invited to a meeting. At this meeting we asked for their authorization to intervene in the school. We gave a brief presentation, after the presentation the parents deliberated for a short time in their native tongue. Finally, the president from the parents society on behalf of all the parents thanked Via Education presence in the comunity and asked all the parents to support their children in the process.

Through the monitoring of the participatory methodology designed for the program Aprender a participar, participando! Telesecundaria students of the Emiliano Zapata in the community of El Aguaje, near San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas, have initiated a Recycling project, which includes the construction of a place to compost and teaching a recycling workshop to their peers to take advantage of the compost. They are also working on building a library by themselves because in polls they found that the students of their school wanted to have more opportunities to have books and reading spaces. Also they have other small projects, for example they built wooden benches for the playground of their school and place a soccer goal net. In Durango, they have initiated a reforestation project in the areas surrounding the Telesecundaria no. 514, the project is funded through the recycling of plastic and paper collected by young people.

We want to thank to Moral and Education Fomenting A.C. (FOME) for their trust and support in this research project in Chiapas.

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