Help 100 Mexican Children Stay in Secondary School

At HECAT, we have high expectations that all our students will eventually grow up to be productive change-makers, whatever the future may keep for them. However, the future does not seem so far away.

Karla is a clear example of how HECAT works with families to impact the future.

Along with her younger sister, Karla’s family was one of the first families that trusted our project since it was founded. Back in 2011, her mother overheard a couple of women speaking about a new promising school while riding a bus. Wanting the best for her daughters’ future, Karla’s mom hurried to register her daughters in our first groups.

Since then, Karla and her family have done everything from their side to take advantage of this opportunity. In 2017, as the first class graduated from our middle school, and thanks to her academic performance, Karla was awarded a full scholarship to continue with her high school in the most prestigious school in our city, the American School of Torreon (CAT).

While Karla, herself, is nearly 16 years old, she is convinced “children are the future” and she will not wait for the future to arrive to make a difference. Every day after school, she devotes her afternoons to help other children (some who are just her age) advance in school. She started tutoring some of our elementary school students at HECAT and also tutors a handful of students from private schools to help with her family’s economy.

The drastic changes experienced when moving from a school that helps underprivileged children to the most expensive school in town would potentially suggest that Karla would disconnect from HECAT once she graduated. Yet, this contrast between economic realities showed her the need for graduates of HECAT to pay pack or pay forward what they received. Karla explains:

“I want to be a teacher because education is the base for a prosperous future. I received so much at HECAT so I think there should be more schools like HECAT. I think it’s very important to give other children the same chance I had to build a better future”.

At HECAT, we do not expect great things from Karla in the future. She is already building a bright present, TODAY!  

And your contribution?

Thanks to your help, we finally finished building our new space for middle school students since our last report. However, we were still about $1,500 USD short from our budget and, beyond a few benches we fixed for the outdoor section of the new library, we were unable to furnish the new space enough to make use of it.

We are glad to announce now that on March 6, our project to expand our middle school facilities was finally fully funded!

We are still waiting for the money to be disbursed, but once we receive it, we will be able to furnish our new library and start letting our students enjoy it. In the meantime, we are carrying out a baseline assessment that will allow us to measure in a qualitative and quantitative manner the impact that your contribution has.

New projects ahead!

Karla might have been the first but many more are coming in the same direction! Stay tuned to know how you can support our new project to provide clean and functioning restrooms for our elementary school children.

With your support, we are building a brighter future, TODAY!