This Tuesday, school children from all over Costa Rica came together to practice their English skills. They used a series of photographs to improvise stories in groups to tie each one together, and was a great success. This was the closing ceremony of the first year of the 'Reaching Out' program that was launched by the local English Language newspaper, the 'Tico Times.' The 'Reaching Out' program was launched to help teens in Costa Rica to broaden their prospects with the help of a new language, and from the looks of things its been a great success.

With sponsorship from a host of corporate bodies and support from the Public Education Ministry (MEP) as well as the US Embassy, the program has provided copies of the newspaper with the full report on the closing ceremony to more than 2,000 students that took part. The teachers were provided with lots of materials and support during 3 training sessions since the program was launched in June. Every effort has been made to ensure the success of this program, and will now continue on into the future.

During the closing ceremony a number of students from all stages of the program got up in front of an audience and spoke about different subjects, showing off just how much the program has helped them in developing their English Language skills. Some students even created their own fun newspapers in which they reported on a variety of subjects in English.

Awards were handed out for the institutions and schools that had shown the best use of the program in helping their students, and one student, Paola Porras, a 10th-grade aspiring veterinarian from the Colegio de Santa Ana, won a scholarship from language school Berlitz for 340 hours of English lessons plus materials, with an estimated value of over $2,500.

It is now hoped that next years ceremony will be even more of a success with up to 3 times as many students taking part in this wonderful scheme.

In a recent report compiled by the British magazine, 'The Economist' , Costa Rica was 1 of just 2 countries in Latin America that were ranked as a 'Full Democracy.'

The study analyzed 165 countries, with half of them qualifying as democracies, however only 28 of these can be considered full democracies, with 54 being flawed democracies, 30 are known as 'hybrid regimes' and 55 authoritarian regimes.

On a scale of 1 to 10, Costa Rica scored an 8.04. The scale is based on each country's electoral process, civil liberties, political participation and political culture.

The Economist's report ranked the most democratic counties as Sweden, Iceland, the Netherlands, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Australia, Canada, the United States and Ireland. With Costa Rica not miles behind.