Edoovillage #2031 - Latvia, Laudona: Association Liograde project

Laudona (till 1926 Liograde) is populated area in Madona Municipality, Latvia. Located on both shores of the river Aiviekste along the road P82 (19 kilometers from the Municipality centre Madona and 157 kilometers from the capital of Latvia Riga). Our parish is one of the largest in Madona Municipality with 1300 inhabitants.
Here in Laudona day-to-day rules big movement. In our parish, in Laudona there is only one rural Secondary School in all Madona Municipality (with the exception of city schools). In Andrejs Eglitis Laudona Secondary School are learning 163 children – both from our parish and from other parishes and municipalities. Our civil parish administration provides children by transport for arriving to school. For children school provides dormitory dorms, free breakfast, lunch; also afternoon snack for those who live in dormitory dorms or wait for transport to their homes in the evening; and dinner only for those who live in dormitory dorms.
Here in Laudona there is also a pre-school institution also known as kindergarten. In kindergarten learns more than 60 children – also from our Laudona parish, and from neighbor parishes and municipalities.
We are fast-growing, booming parish, which is focused on educational development, and on promoting a healthy way of life for our inhabitants.
In Laudona we have Social Care Center – Old People’s Home with 35 inmates, 3 libraries, Youth Initiative Centre, Cultural Centre and many other institutions that serves for local inhabitants.
Within the limits of our capabilities we are very active in sports, in culture (folk-dance collectives, choir, theater/drama lessons etc.) providing citizens with an opportunity to live a full life.
Since the restoration of Independence of Latvia in 1990 more than 30 years have passed, but we are consistently dealing with consequences left by Soviet Union (Occupation in Latvia by Russia lasted 50 years). Occupation has left big scars in standard of living of the population. Large number of people are left without job, without properties, without income. Many people as only solution have found leaving Latvia and find a job abroad, to ensure life for themselves or for those family members who have stayed. Those, who have bigger families and opportunity to go abroad was inconvenient, tries to look for work in cities in Latvia, leaving country side. And those who have stayed in country side are fighting hard with unemployment and working low-pay jobs. In result there is a large number of families to whom every day is like a battle for living, taking care of their families.
Daily in cooperation with Social Services work with those families goes quickly and successful, however on a regular basis we stumble with funding problems – number of families, who need help, is larger than our Country and Municipalities potentialities. Besides, as already mentioned, Country and Municipalities, for children provides living, education, feeding, out-of-hours lessons, transport (to school, to out-of-hours lessons, to homes). There are also provided supporting system – in financial meaning, in material meaning and in psychological - psychologist, career counsellor etc. Civil parish administration of Laudona really takes care and is in strong connection with every family, who needs support. At the beginning of this crisis, when pandemic was announced all around the world, number of families who are suffering multifold increased. From beginning of pandemic, prices of computer engineering have rapidly growth (+25%-40%), what makes more impossible for multi-child families to purchase computer engineering. If till pandemic within of our capabilities we had provided our educational establishments, so students and pre-school children can fully learn, then now we are dealing with problems, that are connected with distance learning – for many there is not enough of technical provision – computers, tablets, mobile phones and internet. On Internet connections municipalities address issues centrally, we also compensate catering expenses for children learning from home at this time. Unfortunately, municipalities can’t provide families, who are multi-children, with computers or tablets, because of their limited finances. Which raises concerns and calls into question the quality of education in the long term. In most family cases there are many pupils, but there is only one accessible device for doing school things – consequently the learning process is delayed because only one pupil (one child) from a family can learn at the same time. Doing school work on mobile phone isn’t effective. Lack of computer increases already existing gap between rural and urban pupils, there is no chance to reclaim so needed computer usage and programming skills. In fact, it does not only exclude the possibility of fully participating in online lessons, but it excludes also a chance in future make a career in IT industry, because they don’t acquire computer usage skills.
This COVID-19 pandemic is a big test for all of us – teachers, pupils, pupil parents. Students lose their attention and concentration capacity, because the school work has to be done individually and distance learning process exhaust, it makes overcome various obstacles. A chance to achieve computers for learning process would unambiguously motivate pupils and would raise learning process development. It would be a benefit for emotional feeling – because such a project would give a lot of positive feelings to both pupils, pupil families and teachers. Emotional stability at this time is really important. It’s the situation in our area and within the framework of this cooperation with company Labdoo we hope to help families, to whom it would be very urgent and vital.
Realization of this project would be a great start for tightly collaboration between Latvia and Switzerland, to encourage others to cooperate more closely. Because each party has something to give to the other.