April Showers bring?

April showers bring . . . what else but more BECA students anxious to be sponsored.

Another "Course One BECA" starts in May and we have posted a few more student profiles for your consideration.



Soooooooo, let's shower those students with sponsorships. (Kinda corny but you get the idea, right?)

You can see who's available by clicking here.

Field Trips!

To us Westerners, field trips sometimes come in the form of a Museum of Science, a visit to the nation's capital, or a stop at an Aquarium (I’m from Miami…that’s what we do!). But for BECA, field trips come in the form of school visits.











Through our valiant effort to stimulate “outside of the box” thinking amongst our becados, we first created the Career Plan module, which provides our becados with the necessary training to develop a long-term plan for their studies. To compliment that module, we decided to organize field trips to schools in Granada and Managua that offer vocational careers.












Why do we offer these field trips? Because we are about giving opportunities! To do that, we want to show our becados that there are opportunities and possibilities outside of Masaya, and then have them decide…for themselves…what suits their interests best.











In addition to having fifty attendees on each trip, for many of our becados these trips served as a first-time visit to Granada and Managua.












So...will our becados apply to study at these schools? We hope so, but we'll have to wait and see.

Did we open their eyes…even un poquito? I’d like to think…YES!

Career Planning...BECA Style

Over the past four weeks my life has really consisted of one thing: The Career Planning Module. If you are unfamiliar with how this fits in to the BECA Program, please take a look at our Course One breakdown.

Module	Duration in Hours
BECA.org	2
Career Plan	6
Typing	30
Microsoft Word	34
Windows + Internet	48
Total Hours	120

The career plan module was designed to guide our becados through a process of self-reflection, as well as setting practical and achievable long-term goals that will lead to economically sustainable careers.

As you can imagine, developing any presentation the first time around is challenging, but given the fact that our Career Planning Module consisted of six hours of training for five BECA Course One sections, this challenge carried some heavier weight.

Luckily, we had a helper throughout this stretch - our very own Cristina, born and raised in San Jose, Costa Rica. Without her, our presentation would have definitely been less dynamic, our brainstorming sessions more stale, and our becados would have received a handout with gringo Spanish instead of Cristina’s native influence.

In terms of planning careers, by no means are we experts. But as administrators of the BECA program, we know what we are looking for when a student says, “I want to study X because of Y.” Even if a student’s plan has potential to change, we still want to see one – a set of ideas with reasons supporting it.

To spice up the ideas, participation, and presentation, we included the following in our Module: Guest speakers, group exercises, simulations, and discussions.

While our students rated the Career Plan Module favorably, we really won’t know just how successful our module was until we see what our students submit to us for BECA Intensive. And, even then, until we see how many of you decide to sponsor them!