Fostering Resilience Initiative: Peru

UNESCO's Peru Horizontes program was in its initial stages of development in March 2019, when the Fostering Resilience Initiative (FRI) and Horizontes met for the first time. The program works with teachers, family members, and community leaders in rural Peruvian communities to strengthen intercultural rural secondary schools and to create opportunities for rural children and adolescents. Collaboration and further discussion led to FRI’s involvement and support of the Horizontes program through ongoing research on how child resilience and social-emotional competencies are understood, measured, and acted upon in Latin America and the creation (ongoing) of locally grounded social and emotional learning (SEL) tools in culturally and linguistically distinct indigenous contexts.

Our Approach 

In 2019, our research began with a secondary review of Latin American literature on resilience and SEL, and examined the theoretical underpinnings and evidence of resilience as well as SEL definitions and measurement. 

Using Jon Hubbard's free listing methodology and cognitive interviewing in order to ground tools in local realities and understandings, our team conducted primary field research with local teachers, students, and parents in secondary schools to better understand resilience and social and emotional competencies.

Goals, Progress, and Impact

Horizontes' primary objective is to ensure that adolescents from four rural areas of Peru can complete their basic secondary education with a life plan based on the integral development of socio-emotional skills and technical-productive training linked to local demands and opportunities.

The findings from our research will be disseminated through national workshops, a regional convening, and an indigenous SEL measurement toolkit. Project work and the dissemination of information will continue through 2020.

Resources

Research Brief April 2020: Capturing local understanding and definitions of social and emotional learning skills for Peruvian rural youth