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An Interview with Narrative 4 Educator, Georgia Ana Gochicoa
This month, to celebrate International Women’s History Month, we’ve asked our staff to nominate some of the amazing women working within the Narrative 4 community, to uplift their work and express our sincere appreciation for their commitment to N4’s core beliefs. These women truly embody compassionate change-making in the world and are doing the work to build support and connection in their communities.
This post is an interview with Georgia Ana Gochicoa, N4 Educator and one of our nominees! Georgia Ana Gochicoa Humphries has been the school principal of the Instituto Panamericano de Tampico school for 22 years. She is a passionate educator and advocate for students and since her own days in high school has worked with underrepresented communities to build resources for support and social impact. Georgia not only helped organize N4 Mexico’s first ever Me 2 You program, full school day of activities centered around social-emotional learning, but also has been working with her students to launch a pilot Civic Engagement project centered around environmental justice. Georgia loves the work that she does and has made N4 incredibly proud of her commitment to infusing empathy throughout her community.
In conversation with Georgia Ana
Tell us about the Civic Engagement Project you are building with students
In the pursuit of creating a positive impact on our community and the environment, a dynamic team of middle school students initiated the project “Helping CASA MAKA and the Environment.” The overarching goal is to inspire and engage the majority of our school community in actively supporting CASA MAKA [a local nonprofit org] while contributing to environmental sustainability. Some examples of the students’ work include: partnering with the elementary school to provide younger students the chance to participate in environmental cleanup activities, successfully campaigning for the entire school to participate in a community-backed food and personal care item drive; they have also worked hard to raise awareness about the critical need for waste separation in Tampico, creating video presentations and online resources to spread the word.
Share some highlights from the N4 Me 2 You day of programming
In September 2023 we had the N4 Me 2 You Day with our middle school students. It was an excellent activity to be done at the beginning of the school year because students had fun and felt happy, allowing them to be in the right mood to share about themselves. I think this activity is helpful to start a school year, forming a positive idea about N4 activities among the new students and allowing enthusiasm for future projects with N4.
Can you share a brief story about a time when your work with N4 felt especially impactful?
Our school community has been enriched by Narrative 4. Each and every activity that has been suggested to us has successfully promoted empathy among our students and staff. Recently eighth and ninth graders inspired by HEARTS TO HELP organized a fair with special games to motivate preschoolers and elementary students to separate plastic lids at home. Lids and food were accepted as payment. The fair was a real success. Preschoolers and elementary students collected a good amount of lids and had lots of fun. Eighth and ninth graders felt proud of themselves watching the success of the fair, the donations collected and the amount of plastic that will be recycled instead of polluting more of our environment. We are planning future activities to further educate and encourage our community on environmentally friendly ways to manage waste.
Read our interviews with other nominees and participate in our International Women’s History month campaign here!
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