VALDOSTA — A semi-truck converted into a high tech mobile classroom in the middle of the Ortega Migrant Camp is bringing opportunity to dozens of children in Echols County this week. Part of the Georgia Department of Education’s “Mobil Unit Summer Pilot Project,” the truck is delivering opportunity to underprivileged families via English as a Second language classes, computer training and literacy programs.

During the day, the mobile facility will be used to improve the vocabulary and reading comprehension of the area’s migrant children. This is, for most, the only exposure they will get to literacy skills until school resumes. 

Transportation issues keep many of the children away from traditional summer enrichment programs, such as the library’s annual Summer Reading Program. For this reason, the South Georgia Regional Library has sent representatives to the mobile classroom in order to bring the children quality library programming. This partnership is in line with the system’s ongoing relationship with the Mexican Consulate. Since November of 2007, the Allen-Statenville Library has hosted the “Plaza Comunitaria,” a center where Mexican nationals can complete their education.

Recently three members of the library staff took stories and crafts to the migrant camp and spent the day working with the children. Over 20 youth squeezed into the trailer to listen to stories and create bag puppets which they then introduced in both Spanish and English.

If the pilot program goes well, the Georgia Department of Education is considering keeping a mobile unit on the road to visit migrant families and out-of-school youth through out the state.