La Esperanza Granada
Giving a Hand Up, Not a Hand Out
La Esperanza Granada
Giving a Hand Up, Not a Hand Out
About Us
La Esperanza Granada is a non-profit, non-political and non-religious educational NGO, funded by both private and public donations.
One evening in the summer of 2002, a group of travellers was chatting and among the group was Bill Harper, who talking about helping poor children with school supplies in Granada.
The school, which only had two teachers for 50 children, was suddenly overrun with 100 students. At the hostel that night, Bill expressed what was to become the motto of La Esperanza Granada: These people need a hand up, not a handout. And so La Esperanza Granada was founded.
There was no grant from a foundation; there was no initial sum of money from some well-meaning philanthropist, no mission group, no long planning sessions working on theories, etc.
There were simply people who cared and were willing to contribute their time, enthusiasm, and expertise.
La Esperanza’s first projects were about helping mothers start their own businesses, increasing the water supply to the village, and taking kids for dental checkups. Our original mission was not about education, but about lifting the community from multiple angles.
Following bill’s death in 2004 Eric weisenburger stayed on as project coordinator for six months followed by anchor from the Netherlands who was also able to stay six months. They were both able to stay thanks to Mark Turner from Floriday who bought a house for volunteers to stay in. At this point Pauline Jackson arrived. Pauline had visited the project with Bill and recognising that continuity was needed she made a commitment to stay for two years.
Under the directorship of Flor Sequeira who had worked alongside Bill, Pauline became our Operations Manager and continued as a volunteer for the next 14 years. We were working in communities where very few adults had more than a year or two of schooling, and children were attending school haphazardly. After the first year it became apparent that the main need was for education and La Esperanza Granada made the commitment to focussing on helping to break the cycle of poverty through education.
The following years the heyday of volunteering here in Granada, before the world closed down with COVID. During those years we had thousands of volunteers, both individual volunteers and those coming as groups from various colleges schools businesses etc. Many returned time after time and many of our donors were former volunteers and their families. In the years between 2005 when we built our first community centre we went on to build an incredible 51 classrooms which included the primary school and the high school in the barrio now known as Nuevo Esperanza. We built many houses in that barriiotoo as well as a community centre, installed water to 200 families who previously collected in buckets from the street taps, built latrines and handwashing stands, playgrounds and sportsfields.
Volunteer spent thousands of hours tutoring children, running vacation schools, teaching English, introducing the children to computers, taking children for dental treatments and optical appointments, organising sports and game days taking children on excursions and in ways too numerous to mention improving the lives of young students from the poorest barrios of Granada.
We also built 4 dedicated learning centres which are a prime focus of our current work. Each located in a barrio on the outskirts of Granada in areas of poverty, the learning centers are a safe haven for the children where we aim to stimulate their creativity, reinforce their school work, lift their confidence and instill a joy of learning.
Late in 2018 Cindy fair came along and took the reins from Pauline, who, at well past retirement age returned home to Australia. Beat Rohr took over as President of our board. At this point volunteer numbers had dropped due to changes in the country and then fell away completely as Covid spread around the world.
Thanks to our wonderful donors we were still able to maintain our programmes of university scholarship and high school sponsorship. The university students changed from being the ayudantes or helpers to becoming the educadoras or educators and under Cindy’s stellar leadership we were able to keep all four learning centres open and full of children.
When Cindy left after two years Roberto Picado held the role of administrator and Graham Holliday was the president of our board of directors. Roberto moved on in 2024 and his place has been very ably taken by Mario Lumbi, Graham has continued as the president of our board and Beat Rhor has maintained his role of advisor and helper. In 2024 Pauline returned from Australia continues to assist where she can.
Learning centres are thriving as are our programmes both for university scholarships and high school sponsorships. In addition we have started a new programme where’s people are able to sponsor individuals children to attend our four vital learning centres.
All of these people, and the countless volunteers who started trickling in 21years ago, are now a broad river of caring people – this is the history of La Esperanza Granada.
Giving a Hand Up, not a Hand Out
We try to help in a noninvasive way, working directly with the children and with the local schools, learning centers, teachers, and parents to meet educational needs.
Our goal is to help children and young people to better navigate life, thanks to a well-rounded education that includes basic competencies and a wide range of life skills. LEG education is non-formal and we make learning fun by stimulating the children’s interests and imaginations, all the while raising their esteem.
Our Work
Our projects focus on education at the most basic level:
Our programs provide access to quality education to children and young people in neighbourhoods across Granada. Along with our sponsorship and after-school club programmes, we work to provide the young people we support with the resources they need to have a successful education, such as school uniforms, textbooks, life-skills workshops and training, mentoring support, sanitary products, bicycles, and more. What’s more, La Esperanza provides young people with a community which encourages them to flourish, both personally and academically.