In this Daily: Outreach in Guanacaste, and the Organizations Giving Back to the Community
There are numerous outreach and nonprofit organizations in Guanacaste, like Abriendo Mentes, CEPIA, SwimSafe, and the many partners of the Guanacaste Community Fund. These community organizations support the region in many ways, providing a wide range of services ranging from year-round projects like sustainability initiatives, support for local businesses, after school education, and social services to seasonal projects like gift and food drives in the holiday season.
As a whole, these organizations provide powerful, tangible, and positive impacts on the region through education, sustainability, safety, and social good, and have helped support Guanacaste on a positive trajectory.
Abriendo Mentes started with 3 kids, as an English tutoring service back in 2009. At the time, the original students were between 6-8 years old, and now, a decade later, two of them are getting ready to attend university.
In 10 years, the original students have continued to learn, and two of them are getting ready to get degrees at university
Abriendo Mentes provides distinct value to the community in that they are working in an area where historically the average net school time is 3 hours per day per student, and high school dropout rates have hovered around 22%.
However, in the past 10 years, almost 1000 students have participated in the extracurricular programs of Abriendo Mentes, which include English classes, social counseling and support, access to sports and art, cultural exchange through international volunteers and teachers, and much more. To those who have been in the area for the past decade, the results in terms of quality of life for students have been very visible.
CEPIA was created in 2005, aimed at providing a different and safe place for children in the community to go to open up about troubles at home, at school, with peers, or in the community, and get assistance. In the very first week 200 children showed up, and since then CEPIA has provided educational, emotional, and extracurricular support for an average of 2000 children per year.
Within the Santa Cruz coastal region there is a limited municipal and national government presence in terms of social and community outreach, so CEPIA fills out a major role by providing first response to any who need it.
SwimSafe Costa Rica is an organization that was founded in 2019 but has a long history originally as a part of ConnectOcean. Despite its comparatively small size and population, Costa Rica has more drownings per year than Australia, and drowning is the country’s second leading cause of accidental death, a number that leans heavily towards children.
In the face of these troubling statistics, SwimSafe Costa Rica was put together, drawing from the success of Nipper Lifesaving and Surf Lifesaving programs. Students can first train as amateur lifesavers through the Nipper Lifesaving program, and then take their skills to the next level by competing in Surf Lifesaving, a team-based sport that is growing around the world. In this way, kids can learn to be safe and capable in the water, and in turn, provide many more sets of eyes and knowledge in their own communities.
Between the original ConnectOcean Nipper program and the first half-year of SwimSafe Costa Rica, more than 300 students have been certified as lifesavers, which provides a tangible presence across Guanacaste’s numerous beaches.
These are a few of the efforts in progress around Guanacaste, where numerous organizations are focused on sustainability, safety, education, social services, economic development, and more in the area.
Many work together through the Guanacaste Community Fund, a trust and uniting body for partners that cover a wide range of economic, social, cultural, and environmental purposes. Abriendo Mentes and CEPIA are both GCF partners, alongside other projects like the permaculture, restoration, and sustainability projects at Restoring Our Watershed and Asociación Vida Verdiazul Verdiazul, environmental education and firefighting at FUNDECONGO, youth programming and support at Centro Civico por la Paz/ Santa Cruz, and dozens more.
The Guanacaste Community Fund provides a platform through which these organizations can collaborate, exchange information and resources, and receive funding for key projects that support the continued growth and bettering of Guanacaste.
The best way to contribute is directly through the Guanacaste Community Fund, which has been set up to facilitate donations from both local and international sources. Another way is to visit the home pages for Abriendo Mentes, CEPIA, and SwimSafe Costa Rica, to find out how to get involved with these organizations directly.
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