Educating for Wellbeing

Dear Friend

In Los Altos de Chiapas — one of Mexico’s most deeply Indigenous regions — educators carry far more than teaching responsibilities. They accompany histories, identities, languages, and deep ties to community life.

Thanks to the support of partners and donors, we have begun bringing culturally responsive socioemotional learning to 466 educators working in 265 schools, reaching 15,877 students. Yet this is only the beginning. We have only just started to touch the vast universe of teachers and children in Indigenous communities across Chiapas.

When we support one teacher, we are not only supporting an individual educator — we are helping transform the lives of hundreds of children, their classrooms, schools, families, and communities.

As we prepared to implement the leadership component of Educating for Well-Being, we realized we needed to pause — to listen, learn, and build together with the Ministry of Education so that the program would be culturally relevant and responsive to the realities of Indigenous schools, educators, and the children they serve.

Through this co-creation process, we integrated four pillars of the Tsotsil worldview into the leadership training:

• Lekil Kuxlejal — well-being, peace, happiness, connection with community, and harmony with all living beings.
• Ich’el Ta Muk’ — deep respect for others, “seeing the other as great.”
• K’uxubinel — feeling the pain of another and recognizing that others’ suffering should never leave us indifferent.
• Lekil Xchanel — “good learning,” where learning, well-being, respect, compassion, identity, and community remain deeply connected.

Rather than replacing the Educating for Well-Being curriculum, we co-adapted it: preserving its core tools and practices while framing them through these four cultural pillars.

Our goal was not simply to deliver content, but to create spaces where educators could strengthen their socioemotional well-being, reflect on their leadership, and nurture more humane, conscious, and resilient school communities.

The voices of participating educators remind us why this work matters.

One teacher reflected that socioemotional learning can generate “a true transformation in society — not only as an individual good, but as a common good.”

Another shared the pride of hearing these four pillars named within the program: “They come from our roots, from our ancestors. Through this training, I realized these teachings were reminding us of who we are.”

For some participants, the experience transformed not only their teaching, but themselves. One educator explained:

“Before the course, I understood some ideas about leadership, but I lacked socioemotional management. After this process, I realized how important it is — and now I am working with other teachers so they can bring it into their own educational practices.”

Another participant told us simply:

“I feel I have changed. I feel like I am a different person than I was before.”

What followed confirmed something deeply important: when well-being, culture, community, and education genuinely dialogue with one another, learning becomes meaningful — and transformation becomes possible.

Every educator we accompany becomes a multiplier — bringing these practices into classrooms, sharing them with colleagues, strengthening school communities, and shaping the experiences of thousands of children.

With your help, we can extend culturally appropriate socioemotional learning to many more teachers and students across Chiapas. By supporting educators, you help create ripple effects that reach entire classrooms, schools, and communities. We have only begun — and your donation can help bring this work to many more Indigenous educators and the children they serve.

Links:

• Indigenous educators talk about their experience with EW

Dear community,

We hope you are having an excellent start to the year. Thanks to your support, in these last months we have maintained this purpose, and we have also put down deeper roots in the communities where we work.

We achieved solid advances in various regions of the country, where Educating for Wellbeing, thanks to you and each of our allies, continues to bring socio-emotional well-being to people, classrooms, schools, and educational systems.

• During September-December 2025, 1,829 people were trained with the Diploma: Educating for Wellbeing,  within a systemic state program in Coahuila of Socio-Emotional Strategies for Healthy and Inclusive Learning Communities, a policy to reduce violence and mental health problems in young people.
• 412 people completed the Systemic Leadership Training in the same state, becoming key agents to promote Socio-Emotional Education in their educational communities.
• In Sinaloa, this same Leadership Training trained more than 300 preschool educators, bringing them together after three generations of the Diploma, to deepen how to implement socio-emotional education at the school level and systemically.
• We developed three Socio-Emotional Education subjects for teacher training institutions (pre-service teacher training) and trained the Teacher Trainers in Nuevo León.

Additionally, one of the most outstanding achievements that fills us with joy and commitment from this last quarter was the recognition by HundrED in its Global Collection 2026 for Educar para el Bienestar as one of the 100 international initiatives for its impact and scalability in education.

This achievement is also yours, each and every one of you. Together, we integrate systemic strategies to create collaborative and sustainable learning environments.

Your generosity is the engine that allows programs like Educating for Wellbeing to continue growing and consolidating. Thanks to you, we are building a socio-emotional support network that protects and transforms.

Thank you for being part of this community of change!

Links:

• Hundred Global Collection 2026
• HundrED - Educating for Wellbeing