FEISA Graduates

FEISA's vision is to train early years teachers to the highest standard in order to develop in children their full potential and so generate a transformation of society.  Our graduates are working in many different contexts.  Some of them are at the frontline of the struggle to transform Paraguay by giving children from disadvantaged backgrounds access to high quality education.  Here are some of their stories:

Anabel graduated in 2003 and now works for a government project aiming to tackle the huge numbers of children working on the streets in Asunción and surrounding towns.  The project works with the families to eliminate the need for the children to work by helping the parents generate sufficient income.  It also provides health, nutrition and educational support.  Of the 1,340 children being supported by the project, 96% are no longer working on the streets.  Annabel is completely fulfilled in her work. “I always knew I wanted to reach more than the children in one class. These children are vulnerable and isolated. Nothing was being done for them. To see the success of the project and know that this is possible for more and more children in Paraguay thrills me.”

Lili graduated in 2004 and now works with the indigenous Aché community.  Educational provision amongst indigenous communities is the worst in Paraguay and it is difficult to find teachers for these communities due to the harsh living conditions.  Lili’s dynamic, interactive teaching methods in pre-school made even the youngest children want to attend so she decided to start a nursery class as well! The community is delighted that their children are learning so much. Her teaching about basic hygiene is also ensuring better health for them and their families. Had Lili not received a full scholarship from FEISA, she would not be teaching today.

Silvia graduated in 2004 and now teaches in a day nursery run by a Mennonite charity.  As well as having a class of 25 four-year-olds, she co-ordinates the volunteers who work with all the children, aged from 6 months to 5 years.  The charity’s vision is to offer economic, social and spiritual help to disadvantaged families, most of whom come from shanty towns.  They wash, feed, educate and provide basic medical care for the children and they provide talks and workshops for the parents on parenting and life skills.  Silvia is now studying for the degree at FEISA and she says she’s learning an enormous amount.  She says, “My whole life I have wanted to be a teacher.  FEISA gave me very good training, which prepared me well for the job.  Now my desire is to become the director of a Christian school.  Doing the degree is the first step.  This is my vocation.”

Elisa graduated in 2006 and is now teaching in a charity-run school for children at risk.  She has a class of 23 five-year-olds, all of whom come from families where the parents are either in prison, working on the street or ill, often with AIDS.  She acts as nurse and mother as well as teacher to these very needy children.  Before she came to FEISA she felt called by God to work with young children, but did not have the economic means to pay for teacher training.  By offering her a scholarship, FEISA gave her the opportunity to qualify as a teacher and she says it was a dream come true for her to be able to study, a real gift from God.  She now feels fulfilled in her work; “I feel useful and I’ve got so much to give.  I try to make a difference to the children’s lives, giving them the love and attention they need.”

© Fiona L Cooper/FEISA 2009

Aim Lower, Think Smaller...

"How to Not Mess Up the Great Commission Too Much"

This video was shown to us at the end of the conference in Lima. It really demonstrates the high priority children's ministry should have, the world over:




© Fiona L Cooper 2009

SIM Children's Ministry Conference

We gathered together from different countries in South America, with one purpose; to enrich our ministries amongst the children of our continent. From Peru, Ecuador, Chile and Paraguay came national children's workers and missionaries, to learn from the wisdom and experience of Betty and David Constance, our speakers for the week. We met in a lovely old hotel in Lima, under the grey skies of approaching winter, the last week of May 2009. 

Betty and David opened up the Bible to show us more deeply God's passion for children and drew from their vast experience to teach us how better to minister to those who are hurting. We could all identify children who had been through distressing experiences and Betty revealed the importance of not just containing the difficult behaviour that often results, but of finding out its root cause and helping the child come to terms with their pain. It was a real joy to listen to Betty express her passion for children and to hear the way the Lord has equipped her over the years to minister to children who were living difficult circumstances. Her talks were also packed full of practical advice for us, so we came away with ideas for helping children we knew.

I enjoyed hearing from all the participants the different ways God is using his church in South America to give children hope and show them God's love. We had plenty of time to fellowship together outside the formal sessions and the conversations over coffee and at meal times were particularly rewarding, as we discovered the things we had in common and the differences between us. There were tears at times, but there was also much laughter as we began to get to know each other.

I feel very privileged to have participated in this SIM gathering: I learned a lot, but mostly I think it did my soul a lot of good to spend time with these special people, all of whom love God and seek to share that love with children.

See more photos:

Lima - Mayo 2009

Adapted from an article written for the SIM Crucial Moments newsletter

© SIM and Fiona L Cooper 2009

warm the cockles of your heart

with a story about... ice!

You know how on a hot summer's day there's nothing better than an iced drink? Well here in Paraguay, there are lots of hot days. One of the ways Paraguayans keep cool is by drinking an ice-cold "tea" made with a native herb. The drink is called terere (pronounced teyreyrey, sort of!) and is drunk by first filling a wooden beaker with the herb, pouring iced water from a thermos flask onto the herb and then drinking through a metal straw. It's extremely refreshing, it's usually shared with friends and it contains some kind of stimulant so keeps you awake during the drowsy heat.

It's important to have access to ice so that there's a ready supply of ice-cold water for the terere. Today on the news was a short item about a 10 year old girl who has been selling the ice to go in the thermos flasks. In Paraguay, the biggest sector of the economy is driven by informal trade, most of which happens on the street. So this girl has her cool-box full of cylinders of ice for sale, under a tree.

However, there's a huge difference between her and most street-sellers in that she doesn't actually stay there to take the money and hand out the ice. There's a little notice stuck on the tree, saying that each cylinder of ice is 500 Guaranies (about 6p) and there's a padlocked tin with a hole in the lid to put your money in. She started this as an experiment because she felt that people were more honest than they are often given credit for. So she decided to see how honest her fellow Paraguayans really are. How many people would take the ice without paying?

Well, it turns out that, much to the amazement of the reporter, everyone has been extremely honest in paying for what they take. In a world of cynicism and distrust, it's really wonderful to hear that there really are plenty of honest people out there.



© Fiona L Cooper 2008

Teacher Training

Did you know that for every time you say something critical to a child, you need to say six positive things to counteract the bad feeling caused by that one negative comment? I found it very useful when I was told that during my own teacher training and I tried to put it into practice, though I must admit to never making it to that ratio. When you think about it, though, even as adults we feel criticism very strongly but quickly forget the praise we're given. It's a very helpful idea to bear in mind when you're teaching because it forces you to make the effort to say positive things, when it's not the most natural thing to do. And that can make teaching a more rewarding experience, because you are focusing on the positive things more, so you feel better about your work.

Perhaps it's a principle we should put into practice in our everyday lives. I know I tend to focus on the negative in every situation and, although I perhaps don't do a lot of verbal criticising of people, neither do I say a lot that's positive. In fact, this week, as I've visited students on teaching practice to assess them, I know I haven't followed my own advice. Oh, sure I've said positive things about their lessons - I always start with the positive - but then I move on to the "areas for improvement" and tend to linger there, giving advice about how they could improve etc. I fear there was one girl who was a bit disheartened at the end of our feedback time. So next time, I'm going to try to end on a positive note.

I have loved watching the students teach; for the most part they have done very well. It's been a particular joy to see those who I also observed last year, and how they've progressed. I find it very fulfilling to have such a direct impact on their training. I remember the teaching practice parts of my training as being the times when I learnt most about teaching. It's particularly useful when you get feedback about how you're doing so that you can improve, even in the next lesson.

So I hope that my own efforts (in sometimes stumbling Spanish) will have an overall positive effect on the students I observe. I would love for them to learn something from me which they can then put into practice and so can see for themselves how much they are improving.

(photo: 3rd year student Marisa on teaching practice)

© Fiona L Cooper 2008

a busy couple of months

It's been a while, I know. There has been a lot going on at work but nothing new or unusual enough for me to feel the urge to write about it. I did workshops with the 1st and 2nd year teacher trainees on how to teach English to young children. The second year group are a lovely bunch of girls; we are blessed to have them at FEISA, and they were very enthusiastic from the beginning. The first years are a much more difficult group and, while doing the workshops I got the feeling that they were thinking it was a bit of a waste of time, so I was very surprised and gratified that my perceptions in fact had been wrong, when they wrote out their evaluation of the workshops. There were only one or two negative comments and almost all of them gave me 5 out of 5!

My parents came for their second visit in as many years! They had a fabulous time watching birds in the Chaco with a British bloke called Paul. I'm not exactly the biggest fan of birdwatching so I was pleased to leave them in the safe and capable hands of Paul while I got on with work at FEISA for a week! We visited the Iguazú falls again and the Jesuit ruins, in the south of Paraguay. I got to see a different part of the country with them, which was lovely. We stayed together at the SIM guest house in Asunción, so I had to get used to my mum's snoring quickly! And that meant Mum and Dad met (albeit briefly!) a number of the other missionaries I work alongside.

It was a very dry winter here, which meant drought for those living in the harsh western region called the Chaco, and it also provided fuel for thousands of forest fires to break out. Fortunately, there has been some rain in the past month or so, which has helped, though not enough to solve the water shortage yet.

I did my first solo visits to girls on teaching practice in October. A bit scary at first but I found I enjoyed being able to input into their training in a direct way. I saw some fantastic teaching and some decidedly underwhelming teaching too! Fortunately, there was a lot more that was positive than negative!

This photo shows one of our students as she supervises kids painting their playground wall

And here the children are painting themselves!


Other things I've been involved in include the design for a website we're putting together. There will be a Spanish part for prospective students and an English part for prospective donors/praying people. The Spanish part is with the website design company now and should be up and running within the next few weeks. The English part will take longer, but we're all quite excited about it, as you can imagine!

We have also taken the mobile play scheme to many, many schools over the past month. Our third year students have taken advantage of this service to enhance their teaching practices in schools in very poor areas. Some of the kids have been so overwhelmed they just didn't know what to do when faced with so many toys! I was playing in the home corner with one little girl, going along with the story she was making up and she was so delighted that I was responding to her play that she gave me a kiss on the cheek!



It's now near the end of the academic year so exams are coming up, which make the students quite stressed, as you can imagine. Everybody is exhausted and it's getting hotter, which makes everything that much more tiring, so we're all looking forward to the end of term!

At the end of October, I went away to a lovely hotel in the trees near a lake about an hour from Asunción, for a women's retreat with 6 others from the SIM team in Paraguay. It was a really wonderful weekend. We were the only guests at the hotel for most of the weekend, so it felt completely luxurious, swimming in the pool by ourselves, having the waiters at our beck and call...! It was fantastic to get to know everyone a bit better and to spend time with each other focusing on God and how to make Jesus our treasure. It really touched my heart and made me reassess my commitment to my Lord. If I really want to experience the joy of the Lord, I have realised this will entail discipline and sacrifice as well as suffering along the way. A hard thing to come to terms with but I am now convinced that the price is worth paying. If you want to pray for me, please pray that I will find fullness of joy in my relationship with my Saviour.

These are some of the women on the retreat; clockwise from left: Kelly, Alyssa, Vonnie, Lissy with Timmy


the extra ones in this picture are Sarah (front left) and Cherlynn (back right) oh, and me, as you can see!

college life continues...

“We want to have fun!” said the 3rd year girls when I asked them what their expectations were for the course I’m teaching them on how to teach English to very young children. It was the beginning of the first lesson of the module and it was really not the kind of response I was expecting at all!! They obviously remember the workshops I did with them on the same topic last September and were expecting a similar teaching style for this module. I was very sorry to have to disappoint them because this course has to be more academic than the workshops; they were a taste of the different activities you can do, but this module has to include theory and the development of lesson plans and schemes of work. I am including some fun activities in all the lessons but there are inevitable moments of dullness!

I am more involved with the teaching practices team this year, going on visits to an orphanage to supervise the students doing stimulation activities with the babies.

This year we have been taking the mobile play scheme to a wider range of places, including church pre-schools in very poor areas. It is a welcome break for the teachers and the children are over the moon at the chance to play freely for an hour or so.

End of year show in the indigenous community

In the vast, inhospitable part of Paraguay known as the Chaco, there is a community of indigenous people who have been receiving training from FEISA staff this year. The purpose of the training has been to improve the standard of pre-school teaching in the community. It has involved several of the women committing themselves to the monthly training sessions and helping out in the pre-school class twice a week for 8 months.

At the end of October, the school invited FEISA staff to their end of year show of work. I was privileged to be one of the teachers who went. It was wonderful to see the work that the women and the teachers had put into preparing the church for the show; they'd taken time to decorate the church and to set out a selection of the children's work for everyone to see. It looked great.

The children sang songs they'd learnt and they each received a certificate and a decorated folder full of their own work. The mums and teachers who had participated in the training programme also received certificates. It was very clear that the children and the women all felt very proud of what they had acheived. It was great to see the parents' interest in the children's work too.

Noemí hands a girl her folder of work.

We made the pre-school children crowns to wear, to help them feel really special on the day.

Older boys from the community at the show.

Mobile Play Scheme

"I don't have a home" a little boy said to Noemí, one of the teacher trainers at FEISA (St Andrew's Early Years Teacher Training College). The college runs a mobile play scheme, which entails taking a whole load of donated toys to churches and schools and inviting disadvantaged children aged 3-8 to play freely for a couple of hours. This month, we've been taking the toys to charity schools, where the third year students are doing their teaching practice. One of these schools is also a home for the children and this was where we met the 4-year-old mentioned above. These children really have nothing to call their own and they are so delighted to be given the chance to play in a loving and accepting environment, that it can be quite distressing for them when it's time to tidy up and leave the toys behind. There were many tears when we left that little boy's school!