Image 1 of 1
C26A1556.jpg
Yahaira Ek Sosa, a primary school teacher,  sprays hand-sanitiser at Rosa Linda Dzul Xool, 20, the sister of her pupil, before giving them instructions at their home, amid the Covid-19 pandemic in Kancab, Yucatán state, Mexico on May 5, 2021. The Covid-19 pandemic has disrupted education for an estimated 90 percent of the world’s school children. In Mexico, schools have been closed since mid-March 2020 and the government implemented the system to distanced learning or “Aprende en Casa” (Learn at Home), where students learn on television and the internet at home.  Since September 2020, two teachers, who are also sisters, Yahaira Ek Sosa and Karla Ek Sosa, have launched the “escuelita móvil” initiative to assure continuity of learning amid the coronavirus pandemic. The “escuelita móvil” initiative is a rural mobile school project being run out of a modified mototaxi, a motorized rickshaw, to safely bring in-person instruction every two weeks to the door of student homes.  The project aims to help students with special needs, students who are behind in their studies, vulnerable students and students with disabilities. They serve students in the communities of Peto, Akil, Tekax, Kancab, Ticul and Mérida in the state of Yucatán and a majority do not have any access to internet, tv or other technology which have turned out necessary to follow the remote learning programs set in place during the pandemic. “We need to make sure that all of Yucatán’s students have access to education, regardless of their families finances, especially now that we are suffering the effects of the pandemic,” says Yahaira Ek. Photograph by Bénédicte Desrus