TALICA (The Teaching and Learning Initiative for Central America) was founded in August 2006. TALICA has been in the making for almost decade. President and founder, Sue Ellen Wortzel, lived and taught elementary school in the central valley region of Costa Rica during the mid to late nineties. When she returned to the US in 2000, she began working for Gwinnett County Public Schools in Georgia as a teacher. Since her only teaching experience had been in Costa Rican private schools, Sue Ellen was overwhelmed with the amount of supplies, especially books that were available to US teachers and their students. Even though the Costa Rican schools were blessed with various materials and technology, Sue Ellen began to recall what was not available to the children who attended those schools in Costa Rica.
At the same time, Sue Ellen's classroom in the United States was filling up with immigrant students who didn't attend these types of private schools. It dawned on her that people with the most opportunity don't necessarily leave their countries, their language, everything they know, to find a new life in the US. Often times, the ones who leave are less fortunate and make the journey to the North in search of a better life.
Sunset in Flores, Guatemala
Throughout the last eight years, this fact weighed heavily upon Sue Ellen's mind. Therefore, in July and August of 2006 she took a solo trip through Guatemala, El Salvador, and Nicaragua to investigate the schools and communities from which my students came. Maybe, just maybe, if within these communities, children had access to more information and had access to more materials that promoted and celebrated being literate, the opportunities for prosperity might present themselves. She decided she wanted to help make dreams and opportunities be realized.
Since then, TALICA can't express how wonderful it feels to have begun this work. Always keep in mind, with one child at a time, one book at a time, we can change the world.
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