Rostros Sabios: De Mi Corazon A Tu Corazon

Rostros Sabios, De mi Corazon a tu Corazon is a nonprofit organization that is dedicated to providing childcare, as well as educational, nutritional and medical services for the children of working mothers and families within marginalized communities.  Our mission is to nurture the brains and bodies of young children to provide a foundation to ensure healthy development into future leaders within their surrounding communities.  This program has been recognized by the UN as one of the strongest tools for social change and development within 3rd World countries.

If selected as a winner, we would utilize the funding and support to construct new education centers within new marginalized communities around the country, create fair wages for all employees, provide training and certification to all staff in order to stimulate their personal and professional development, launch comprehensive health brigades, purchase the buildings of the existing physical education centers currently being utilized in order to alleviate the need to source monthly funding to cover rental costs, as well as reestablish and improve upon the pre-existing government-supplied subsidy (which no longer exists) that used to provide these resources and services to children and families within marginalized communities throughout Mexico.  

As a brown skinned child growing up in Mexico amongst peers of a lighter skin tone, I quickly learned what it was like to feel different.  Although my parents never taught me the hierarchy of color, my fellow students went out of their way to let me know that I didn't fit in.  I was picked on constantly, and was frequently accused of being adopted due to my parents being of a lighter skin tone.  I would come home crying on a daily basis, but the final straw for my father was when one of my fellow classmates attempted to stab me in the eye with a pencil.

Following this, my father set out to found his own school, where children of all backgrounds could be educated in a safe, prejudice-free environment, which provided them with the much needed tools for success.  Over the years, I watched as hundreds of students successfully went through the program by my side, up until the date the government ended the much needed subsidy in 2019.  My life's mission is to reinstate and recreate this subsidy privately, so that we can continue to provide these services to the surrounding community without fear of termination.

On a daily basis, marginalized youth experience various counts of abandonment, exploitation, sex trafficking, indentured servitude, sexual assault, domestic violence, hunger, and poverty.  And, many feel the immense pressure to risk their lives in the attempt to migrate to other countries, due to lack of necessary resources and the coverage of basic human needs.

According to Forbes, only 0.7% of Mexico's GDP is dedicated to the integral development of Mexican children, which doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of the needs of this 30.9 million population.  According to Unicef Mexico, 51% of the boys, girls, and Mexican teenagers live in poverty, with 20% living in severe poverty.

Furthermore, Morelos is listed as the 7th poorest state, with a poverty level of 50.8%, and has one of the highest ranking numbers of sexual abuse and violence against youth (23%) within the country, compared to the national percentage of 12.8%.  During the pandemic, this figure increased over 50%.

In order to combat this, we are working to enroll the vast majority of the local youth into our program, in order to provide them with integral childhood development services, such as stability, education, daily access to breakfast and lunch, and safe refuge.

The thing that sets us apart from other programs within the city, is that we provide top notch services across the board, from quality education, food, medical services, and mentorship.

We also are working to dramatically increase the salaries of our employees.  As we all know, in many countries, although teachers have the most important jobs, they are typically the some of the least paid.  As you can imagine, this is only exacerbated in 3rd World countries.  Therefore, we are striving to start the trend in paying teachers on the level that they deserve to be paid.  Our goal is to rewrite social norms, and centralize the importance of education once again.

By doing this, we give the passion and dedication back to our educators, which has a ripple effect down to our students.  We sow intimate relationships in and out the classroom from a young age up through adolescence, which provides stability and reinforcement of key ideals for each student that comes through our program.

Also, by providing fair wages, we also provide stimulation to the local economy.  The more money we invest in our teachers and students, the greater impact we have on the surrounding communities.

HOW:

Since the lost of the government supplied subsidy, our team has revamped and relaunched the lost subsidy out of the pockets of the founding team, as well as a series of vast fundraising efforts in order to continue to supply these necessary services to the youth across the eight (8) education centers within our network.

Rostros Sabios has a qualified team of trained and certified professionals, educators and caregivers that are passionate and dedicated to creating a present and successful future for the Mexican youth.  In fact, this team is employed by the Mexican education department to train and certify other education providers throughout the state, and is constantly working to enhance the yearly curriculum for our students. 

WHY:

The way we impact Humanity is by molding and shaping our future generations.  According to the Centro de Investigación Económica y Presupuestaria, "90% of the human brain develops in early stages of infancy between 0 and 5 years old where kids get the ability to think, speak, and learn."  Also, according to the CEO of Save the Children of Mexico, "early education only reaches 4 of every 10 children", hence why we strive to begin education as early as possible.