Centro Educativo La Esperanza
Centro Educativo La Esperanza (Club Esperanza) is in Nicaragua’s capital city of Managua, adjacent to the community Barrio Villa Guadalupe from which it draws its participants. The barrio is a place of great risk for the children living there. Club Esperanza provides a place of safety and hope for the future.
Classes are provided for pre-kindergarten through the sixth grade. Older youth receive scholarships to attend high school, and they participate in a youth group. Meals (typically breakfast and lunch each school day) are also provided. In 2023 there were 390 students, and 161,250 meals were served.
Club Esperanza offers extracurricular activities including a lacrosse team that plays in a local league, music, art, dance, and English. The impoverished families of the students participating in Club Esperanza’s programs are very appreciative of the quality of the education, extracurricular programs, care, and love the staff provide.
Club Esperanza serves the Villa Guadalupe community in ways other than education. They provide aid and support to 13 families with special needs and disabled children. They provide support and assistance to pregnant and nursing mothers. Also, they make their facilities available for church services twice each week.
The community of Villa Guadalupe was constructed in 2013 to provide more adequate housing with electricity and indoor plumbing for families being relocated out of their subsistence dwellings inside Managua’s municipal garbage dump—the infamous dump known as La Chureca or “The Wastebasket.“ These families had been living in makeshift shelters fashioned out of scrap materials salvaged from the dump. The new houses were built with the help of a grant from the Spanish government. Approximately 1200 people were relocated from La Chureca to Villa Guadalupe.
Participants in Austin Samaritans mission trips have supported Club Esperanza by providing needed maintenance at the facilities and interacting with the students to provide special educational opportunities. Past mission trip participants have conducted Vacation Bible School activities, provided students with individual photos of themselves, and taken students to the Managua Zoo. Other, larger, projects have included the following:
Building a computer lab.
Refurbishing a garden area.
Painting the security walls around the facility.
Installing ceiling fans and a water tower.
Creating an outdoor space where teachers can relax.
