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Tegucigalpa, May 24, 2021. Jobed Elieser Mejía Avila, Master in Central American Rural Education and one of the 150 teachers who participated in the workshop for trainers offered by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime for Central America and the Caribbean (UNODC ROPAN) in Honduras, held from April 12 to May 12, believes that learning about ethics, integrity and the fight against corruption offers the opportunity to "have a more just society and sow the foundations for a culture of peace and common good".
She found this training "very important" because it allowed her to "unlearn in order to relearn, refresh her knowledge and learn new things.
Mejía, who works at the Miguel Paz Barahona Basic Education Center in the municipality of San Juan, La Paz, and provides honorary educational services at the President Kennedy Basic Education Center in the community of Pacheco, will put the knowledge she gained into practice and will continue to strengthen her students in the subjects covered "so that they can be good citizens in the beautiful department of La Paz, Honduras".
Living and educating in values
Yeceisky Yajerik Ortega Ramos found this workshop - held as part of the Education for Justice Initiative - "excellent in everything". He highlights the aspects of planning, development and evaluation; and he was satisfied with the suggestions of exercises to apply to his classes, the methodology to evaluate learning and other teaching tools that he can adapt to his contexts and courses.
This professor of the Department of Natural Sciences of the Universidad Pedagógica Nacional Francisco Morazán believes that "ethical values are educated by living them, they are contagious, what is lived in values is reflected", and that teachers must form "citizens with a critical conscience, women and men with free thinking and not future passive consumers".
He adds that it is a teacher's responsibility to "promote social coexistence and encourage constructive, integral, inclusive and peaceful relationships, while fulfilling and noting our rights and obligations".
As part of his ethical commitment, Ortega Ramos will offer classes "that promote ethical values, responsibility, respect, compliance with the rules, the culture of legality, transparency and other axes analyzed in this training course to ensure a better future for our Honduran society".
A social transformation
For Gabriel Zaldívar, educator at the National School of Fine Arts and at the Francisco Morazán National Pedagogical University, the workshop on ethics, integrity and the fight against corruption seemed to him "very complete and well managed; the methodology was appropriate and the discussion generated regarding the role of educators in the formation of values in a country like ours, where it is fundamental to achieve social transformation".
"In a country where we face corruption at all levels on a daily basis and where teachers play a role in social transformation, ethical training as a transversal axis in educational paradigms is extremely necessary and essential", says Zaldívar.
He also values this training that educators receive, since "ethics and values are fundamental in the development of all human activities".
He will apply what he has learned "seeking a change of attitude in the students, assuming that the country's transformations are everyone's responsibility".
"Valuing the subject of ethics and integrity allows us to build harmonious relationships based on respect for human dignity," says Lauren Gardela Maldonado Ochoa, an educator at the Universidad Pedagógica Nacional Francisco Morazán, in Tegucigalpa.
Like Zaldívar, she will put into practice what she learned in the workshop, achieving "a change of attitude, but, above all, to form character", manifesting a look at self-knowledge, self-regulation and self-understanding to achieve an empathetic approach, conflict mediator and manager of emotions contemplated in the strengthening of virtues".
The UNODC ethics, integrity and anti-corruption workshop was delivered in the framework of the Global Project for the Implementation of the Doha Declaration in Honduras.