CIDICCO- International Center for Cover Crops Honduras

CIDICCO is addressing Honduras’s lack of educational opportunities in the rural areas with an innovative educational program. This program was developed in Colombia and is known as the “System for Tutorial Learning” or “SAT” (Spanish acronym for Sistema de Aprendizaje Tutorial).

With support from the World Bank, “SAT” was initiated in rural areas Colombia to improve the quality of rural education. Studies done in Colombia showed that the graduates of the SAT program gained comprehensive knowledge in animal husbandry, agriculture, soil chemistry and other fields associated with rural vocations. They also knew how to create micro-enterprises and participated in local community projects.

CIDICCO WORKS WITH OTHER EPIC PROJECTS
In 2006 in the community of La Sorto built the first middle school in the history of the village. This might not seem remarkable if it weren’t for the context of Honduras. Nationally only 30 percent of children entering the first grade go on to middle school. Additionally, La Sorto is an indigenous village of Lenca, descendants of the Maya, and it would not have had national priority. La Semilla’s work with youth groups in the village motivated La Sorto parents to organize and request a “SAT” school from CIDICCO. The result has been a collaborative program in innovative middle school education. In La Sorto there were 37 youth who finished 7th grade in 2007, the first year of the new SAT program. Now there is a complete middle school with classes through 9th grade. This is a most remarkable spin-off of the work of La Semilla del Progreso  organizing parents and their teens for instruction in sustainable agriculture