Yorivel Pinto, an enumerator with IPA in Panama, walked for six hours from the closest road to the remote community of Higuerón.
Her mission? To find and interview young school children for a study that is measuring whether a bilingual and intercultural preschool math program improves child learning in poor, largely indigenous communities in the Ngäbe region of Panama.
Because the schools are in isolated areas, surveyors (all of whom are local women) need to walk long distances, take small boats on the river, and ride horses to reach the children. It’s not easy work, but Yorivel says the work is important for the children in her area, and she values that the project is working to preserve the local Ngäbere language.
The program is modeled after a similar program in Paraguay scaled up based on positive results. This research also has the potential to improve child learning in Panama, and beyond.
Yorivel’s work—the lengths she goes to—is part of the painstaking process of collecting high-quality data that feeds into good research and, in turn, good programs and policies.
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