From vulnerable towns to University

The Peraj Mexico Program in the Miguel Hidalgo municipality, Mexico City, has supported boys and girls in fifth and sixth grade in public primary schools. Through hybrid mentoring sessions (virtual and in-person), held twice a week, the program aims to foster a commitment to education and improve academic performance.

As part of the activities carried out, the following can be mentioned:

• "Breaking Virtuality": the first in-person meeting between pairs (children and mentors) aimed to strengthen friendship bonds and significantly increase trust between them.

• National Peraj Day: an activity held at Ciudad Universitaria (UNAM) in collaboration with other participating universities in Mexico City. This day is of great importance as it is simultaneously celebrated in other states of the Mexican Republic. Experiences are shared, friendships are formed, and the pairs develop their skills and abilities.

• Cybersecurity Talk for Parents: aimed to raise awareness among parents about the fragility of using digital media. Prevention strategies for cyber misuse were provided, as well as information about locks and special applications appropriate for the age of the children.

• Children's Day: a celebration with activities that strengthened teamwork, communication, leadership, integration, and connection.

The closing event took place on July 8th with an activity held at the Faro Salesiano. A total of 51 pairs (mentors, children) participated, with the involvement of 3 universities and 3 primary schools.

We would like to share the following testimonial:

Meredith Avalos, Mentor of the Peraj program

"My name is Meredith Avalos, and I am 29 years old. I studied Restaurant Management at Universidad Anáhuac Norte.

When I started looking for a place to do my social service, none caught my attention until I found Peraj Mexico. They explained that I would be providing mentoring to a child.

At first, I was intimidated by the idea of what I could contribute to a child and how I would form a relationship with them. However, little by little, I discovered that my friend was a kind, fun-loving child with varied interests and always open to learning new things.

I am grateful to Peraj for the opportunity to have this experience."

During this period, corresponding to the 2022 -2023 cycle, the offer of workshops to more than 250 university mentors from 9 states of the Mexican Republic and from more than 10 Higher Education Institutions has been contemplated in our comprehensive training and development plan.

The training session and workshops reinforce the work carried out by the mentors within our program, as well as helping them to acquire soft skills for their personal and professional development.

Among the topics reviewed in this training plan were:

• Prevention of addictions

• Social Emotional Skills

• Conscious Leadership

• Collective Leadership

• Educational Equity

The trainings were developed by experts in their areas:

• Centros de Integración Juvenil

• Enseña por México

These organizations are part of Peraj Mexico's strategic alliances in favor of the program and to inspire the future of girls and boys who need us today.

We invite you to continue supporting our actions for education and child development. We appreciate your valuable donations and invite you to spread the word about the work that together we make possible.

#TodosSomosPeraj

During this school year we continue to strengthen our activities in the states of Veracruz and Guerrero. The participating Higher Education Institutions and campus are:

• Universidad Veracruzana, where 10 mentors of are participating. They will be in training during the week of November 21 to 25, then the mentor-mentee pairs will be assigned and mentoring will begin and last until June 2023.

• Technological Institute of Perote, where 19 mentors and 1 coordinator will be participating.

• Autonomous University of Guerrero, where 45 mentors and 2 coordinators participate. They are

currently in training.

• Zongolica Higher Technological Institute, where 22 mentors and 1 coordinator participate.

We want to continue promoting our work and thanks to your contributions this will be possible.

Help us promote the future of girls and boys in Mexico!

One of our objectives is to generate synergy with socially responsible companies through experiences in actions that help reduce the social gap and at the same time develop skills in collaborators and in the beneficiaries of our program.

At the end of last year we began to promote these activities with companies such as Moody's and Nielsen.

During this year, we managed to increase our corporate volunteering activities by offering spaces for reflection, where experiences and knowledge about the labor field with a social perspective were shared, which has provided sensitivity on this topic to university students about to graduate.

Companies such as Nielsen and Moody´s participated for the second consecutive year.

Other companies have joined the volunteer activities, like the insurance corporation Grupo ProteG, with whom we carried out sports activities with children, mentors and company collaborators.

These activities have been very rewarding for the beneficiaries of our program, since they have provided them with other types of experiences and benefits.

We invite you to continue supporting Peraj and to invite more people to do the same. This will allow us to extend the benefits of the program to more mentees and mentors in Mexico.

In Peraj, the objective aimed at reducing continuous school dropouts and getting the program to places where they need us most is a work that we do thanks to the contributions of each of the donors who support this educational project.

 We are pleased to share that, thanks to the alliance with the Tecnológico Nacional de México, the Instituto Tecnológico de Perote, is about to join from the next school year to start mentoring activities, with an approximate of 100 social service providers who have enrolled in the program.

Perote is located in Veracruz and is part of the Sierra Madre Oriental, has a dropout rate in middle and high school of 53% and 15% illiteracy among girls and boys from 6 to 14 years old.

Join us and help us make our mentoring program reach more Mexican children.