Resilience tool for children after Hurricane Maria

Dear friends:

As we approach the Holidays and children get ready to spend more time with family and friends, we look back to all the growth that we have seen in our participants and their parents. 

The students have shown academic progress, and families are demonstrating emotional strength. So we see them go into the new year with hope.

After doing a program assessment, we are planning to shift the project to serve a new population: teenagers from our alternative high school.  

In the next weeks, you will see this campaign transformed into a new one -- with a revised title and new objectives. The main goal will be the same: to provide participants with emotional resilience tools so they can face the future with confidence. Of course, some adaptations will be made according to the characteristics and needs of high school students. We will share more details soon!

Stay tuned for more information on our educational model and how we plan to insert these tools into our curriculum.

We wish you all a blessed New Year and hope to have your support for this new endeavour.

We just got the numbers from our report for the 2018-2019 school year, with great results -- thanks to all our donors and allies!

The project managed to provide tutoring services in the areas of English, Spanish, Mathematics, and Science, as well as offering workshops, counseling, therapies, and recreational activities. For the Monday to Thursday extended hours, we had an attendance of of 116 participants from 77 families of the Municipality of Humacao.

63% of participants invested at least eight hours per week in mentoring activities that encouraged positive behavior, academic enrichment activities linked to multiple intelligences, sports activities and personal enrichment activities.

The Program reached out to  students and their families to help strengthen family relationships. Academic enrichment activities were offered with different learning opportunities, integrating recreational activities, sports, fine arts, technology, educational trips, plays, etc. As part of coping with the trauma of a natural disaster, children and youth participated on daily activities during the year in maintaining the school spaces clean, such as classrooms, surroundings, and interior and exterior courtyards. This activity allowed the children to become aware of the importance of keeping their school and community clean in order to live in environments that are pleasing to all and to be protagonists in the creation of the future from their own hands.

As for academic achievements:

• 100% was promoted to the next grade level.
• 60% of the participants demonstrated progress in the subject of Spanish
• 53% of the participants demonstrated progress in the subject of English
• 30% of the participants demonstrated progress in the subject of Mathematics
• 48% of the participants demonstrated progress in the subject of Science

The children have shown improvement with better academic achievements, and also contagious enthusiasm. We have seen positive relationship developments among  the children, parents and the group of young mentors.

Again, this is only possible because of your help. So please continue to support this project so we can celebrate another successful school year.