September 17th marks four years since the Delia Morán Vidanta Foundation, a local community educational center, started offering extracurricular activities to assist children of limited resources in the Nayarit area. Since 2013, these activities have contributed to improving the life of more than 500 children in the region.
“This anniversary is a special time for us because we have now graduated two generations of classes who have fully completed the program. It also represents a before and after where we can clearly evaluate what we have accomplished and the opportunities for improvement”, says Isabel Arana, director of the Delia Morán Vidanta Foundation.
All courses offered by the foundation seek to complement the academic education that the children receive within the school system through afternoon activities that include arts and sports as well as English, math, reading, computer science, ethics, nutrition, and more.
Additionally, the foundation offers the students transportation, highly qualified teachers, state-of-the-art learning and recreation areas, and all the material needed for their courses.
Isabel Arana, who has been in charge of the educational center since it started providing these activities, says that she’s seen a significant change in how many of these children’s families think about their children’s future and the opportunities afforded to them since they started attending the foundation.
She points out that the Delia Morán Vidanta Foundation carries out a selection process that targets children who are particularly vulnerable, so that they can have access to services that supplement their current education with skills and outlooks that set them up for more opportunities.
To get admitted into the foundation, there are two filters. The first one is done by the System of Integral Family Development of Nayarit, who pre-selects the children. From that point, a file is generated with socio-economic studies done by social workers, vulnerability verdicts, letters from the parents, and other relevant documents that inform the process. The second filter is done by the foundation with the support of the psychology, nutritional, and medical professionals.
To date, there are more than 500 kids that have benefited from this program and the wait list is long,
“It’s difficult, because all families that are part of the process are very important to us and we would like to accept every child, but there’s a limit to how many we can accommodate and a wait list we must respect”, explains Isabel Arana.
She points out that one of the plans of the foundation is to follow up on graduates and establish a long-term relationship in order to continue to help them on a path toward opportunity. As part of this relationship and to further celebrate this anniversary, the foundation will host a small event for past graduates and current attendees to honor their achievements with food and activities. More over, the children will be given the opportunity to celebrate their education in a fun and creative way.
The Delia Morán Foundation is part of the initiatives that Grupo Vidanta has taken on as part of their social responsibility, and through which they look to contribute to child development.
