Government education system SENA won a national award for its project “English for all Colombians.”
The SENA system, based on the Caribbean archipelago of San Andres, won the National Award for Senior Management in Public Administration under the heading of ‘Top Management’, reported news station Caracol Friday.
The prize recognised SENA’s achievement in promoting language-learning, with the participation of the Raizal ethnic community who are native to San Andres and whose mother tongue is English.
Using their linguistic skills, the Raizal have been working with SENA since August 2007, providing language training to some 550,000 people across Colombia by means of virtual tuition from their base on San Andres.
The project, whose full name is “English for all Colombians from Colombian Islands”, was framed within government policies on the optimization of social and economic conditions, and also aimed to improve the living conditions of the Raizal peoples of San Andres, Providencia and Santa Catalina.
The project has been a success, serving over half a million men and women, as well as helping island communities by providing employment, training, and increasing minority ethnic groups’ participation in national development.