Education Mexico Project #53965

Mentoring For 1k At-Risk Young Women in Mexico

by Ecosistema para la cocreacion de oportunidades A.C.

Project Report | Apr 24, 2025
WILL: A Journey of Mentorship and Transformation -

By Elena Olascoaga | Former Executive Director

Dear community,

WILL was much more than a mentoring program. It became a space for mutual growth, sisterhood, and inspiration. Our mentors often shared they learned more than they gave, while mentees expressed how deeply valued and guided they felt during the process.

Thanks to your generous support, WILL reached 483 students and over 300 mentors. We continue receiving inspiring updates from our mentees—many have graduated from university, pursued international scholarships, or boldly entered STEM fields previously perceived as "not for them." These stories fill our hearts with joy.

WILL, as a permanent program, has come to an end. We are now exploring ways to reinvent it to scale its impact sustainably. At this time, our organization Ecosistema para la Co-Creación de Oportunidades A.C. has suspended operations. The current nonprofit model is not sustainable, and we are in a period of transformation, seeking new ways to leverage our expertise in designing social impact projects for Gender Equality and Sustainable Development.

From the bottom of our hearts, thank you for being part of this journey. Me, as a founder, will continue leading initiatives to advance gender equality. You can follow my work here:
LinkedIn – Elena Olascoaga

If you have recurring donations enabled, please note that they will now be redirected to a collective fund that GlobalGiving assigns to other impactful projects.

With immense gratitude and love,
Elena Olascoaga

Querida comunidad,

WILL fue mucho más que un programa de mentoría. Se convirtió en un espacio de crecimiento mutuo, sororidad e inspiración. Las mentoras siempre compartían haber aprendido más de lo que dieron, mientras que las mentees expresaban cuánto valoraban el acompañamiento recibido.

Gracias a su apoyo generoso, WILL llegó a 483 alumnas y más de 300 mentoras. Seguimos recibiendo noticias increíbles: muchas han terminado la universidad, otras han ganado becas para estudiar en el extranjero, y varias se han atrevido a estudiar matemáticas o ciencias. Estas historias nos llenan de alegría.

WILL como programa permanente ha llegado a su fin. Estamos explorando cómo reinventarlo de una forma más escalable y sostenible. Actualmente, nuestra organización Ecosistema para la Co-Creación de Oportunidades A.C. ha suspendido actividades, ya que el modelo de asociación civil no es sostenible en este momento. Estamos buscando nuevas formas de transformar nuestra experiencia en el diseño de proyectos con impacto social para la igualdad de género y el desarrollo sostenible.

De todo corazón, gracias por haber sido parte de esta historia. Yo, como fundadora, seguiré impulsando esfuerzos en favor de la igualdad de género. Puedes seguir mi trabajo aquí:
LinkedIn – Elena Olascoaga

Si tienen activadas las donaciones recurrentes, por favor tomen en cuenta que ahora serán redirigidas a un fondo colectivo que GlobalGiving asigna a otros proyectos de impacto.

Con mucho agradecimiento y cariño,
Elena Olascoaga

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Jul 18, 2023
Recuperando la esperanza

By Natalia Cortes | Direccion de Programas

It has been 7 months since our first crowdfunding campaign to finance our LIV project, which aims to build a support network of alternative actors to assist women with low educational levels living in violent circumstances. This support network will be trained to provide appropriate emotional support to women victims of violence and will be equipped to address the factors that contribute to victims not reporting their experiences or seeking help. We are excited to share our progress with you.

Through GlobalGiving, we raised $800 USD to fund the activities required by the program, and in the following lines, we would like to share with you the advancements we have made in consolidating the training and formation of this support network for women.

We are thrilled because, after arduous work mapping alliances and reformulating our profile and training approach, we have managed to solidify the spaces where we will conduct our training sessions. It was disheartening to see time pass by without achieving concrete alliances and spaces, but after a few months and gaining a new perspective, we have regained hope and have consolidated the following spaces and upcoming dates to implement our content:

-Wizeline in virtual mode for the month of August, with a direct impact on approximately 80 people.

-Mary Kay Mexico in virtual and in-person mode for the month of September, with a direct impact on approximately 80 people.

-Jun Café in-person for the month of August, with a direct impact on approximately 5 people.

We continue to seek more spaces where our program will be welcomed and can positively impact the lives of many more working women. It will be our pleasure to show you in the next report the photos of how the training sessions unfolded.

Thank you very much for your donation. Thanks to you, we will be ready to start building this support network, as we envision the emergence of a coordinated system of care integrated by alternative actors capable of supporting women victims of violence. With that goal in mind, we will continue working until we see it fully consolidated.

With love

Olascoaga® Team

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May 4, 2023
Seguimos trabajando

By Natalia Cortes | Direccion de Programas

It has been 16 months since our first crowdfunding campaign to finance a digital platform that provides mentoring and professional support to young Mexican female students who will be the first women in their families to attend and complete university studies. Through the GlobalGiving program, we raised $9,001 to fund a digital platform to scale our mentoring program. And with great happiness, we can now share that we have achieved our goal and are working on improving our platform.

Last year, in the months of July and August, we partnered with a company called "TroopMark" that offers digital marketing, branding, and web development services. This alliance was fascinating and realistic for us to be able to achieve our scalability goal. During these months, Olascoaga®'s program team was in constant ideation and feedback sessions to communicate the program's needs, areas of opportunity, and learnings we obtained during this scalability process to TroopMark's team. The result was impressive. Apart from making an almost instant match with TroopMark, they were able to understand and materialize our needs and ideas, resulting in the creation of our own "Will Platform," where we currently host two of our editions this year. In our platform, both mentors and mentees can enter their personal information, build a personal profile, know the contact details and information of their mentee or mentor, and have a calendar that allows them to schedule their sessions, fill out their attendance, and have the resources and tools they need to carry out their mentoring.

This year, 2023, we have started the second edition of our mentoring program in partnership with the Autonomous University of Baja California, with whom we have completed two editions. The first edition took place at the end of last year, resulting in a total of 45 female students who have been direct beneficiaries of the Will platform. Having the platform has allowed us to scale our operations, and both mentees and mentors can easily access resources and maintain smooth communication. At the end of this edition, with the support of mentors and students, we will conduct a satisfaction and evaluation survey of the platform to recognize areas for improvement and integrate them to be available by the end of this year or the beginning of 2024.

Thank you very much for your donation. Thank you for believing in us as we learn and grow throughout this process, and for taking the initiative to help young women have a better future and succeed in life.

With love,

Olascoaga® team

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