Global Health Beat Foundation’s (GHBF) annual community party took place on Saturday September 9th, 2023, in collaboration with Bilingual Montessori Lab Academy (BMLA) based in Forest Park, Illinois. Event participants enjoyed a great concert by Medinas and Friends, delicious Colombian and North American specialties and drinks, children’s games including an inflatable bouncy house and face painting, an amazing silent auction, prizes, and henna tattoos decorations for adults.
During the event, Elena Navas-Nacher, PhD, MS (our C0-Founder and CEO, epidemiologist, and community health scientist) and Claudia Medina (Founder and Principal, Bilingual Montessori Lab Academy, and bilingualism and Montessori education expert) shared their united vision around transforming bilingual education methodologies currently used in the United States and Colombia, South America. They explained how their ongoing collaborative work has begun to enable local and Colombian teachers to incorporate music, theater, and dance as tools to teach English as a second language (ESL), using STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics) methodology.
“In partnership with community-based organizations, we are establishing an innovative, community-driven and collaborative platform to foster meaningful bilingual education training, and outreach across the greater Chicagoland area,” said Dr. Navas-Nacher. “Our goal is to transform lives through equity and inclusion in health/wellness, and education programs. By investing in education, we are indirectly investing in health and wellbeing. Global Health Beat Foundation’s community engagement and capacity-building initiatives are changing the architecture of how we collectively improve equity and inclusion around bilingualism our under-resourced communities.”
According to Claudia Medina, “Bilingual education is not just language learning, it develops cognition, mental processes, and empathy for children for the rest of their lives. Our programs’ mission is to provide a whole child experience which considers the emotional, intellectual, physical, and social development of every child. Through our partnership with GHBF we have continued to disseminate the high correlation that exists between education, bilingualism, and health/well-being.”
Our event guests and supporters enjoyed learning more about the “Programa de Inglés La Palma” (“English Program La Palma”), which is a community-based participatory action research project in partnership with the Proyecto Educativo Buenos Aires (PEBA), the Institución Educativa Técnica Nueva Esperanza la Palma(IETNELP), and the Universidad del Tolima (UT) located near Ibagué, Colombia.
The event’s evaluation survey preliminary data showed that the great majority of participants were very satisfied with the activity’s content and format, which allowed them to do valuable networking, reflect, identify, process, and acquire new ideas on how to join and support the bilingual education initiatives being carried-out by GHBF and BMLA.
Our collaborative work remains committed to advancing the bilingualism among ethno-culturally diverse under-resourced children and adolescents to continue transforming lives through equity and inclusion in the United States and Colombia.
Join our cause TODAY! For additional information about our education and health/wellbeing programs, future workshops, or to donate, visit our web page: https://globalhealthbeat.org or contact us via email: enavas@globalhealthbeat.org
