Our focus is on rural communities

Project Alianza works in remote farming communities, in Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Guatemala, where there is greatest inequality in primary education completion between rich and poor children in the region. More than half of children in rural Nicaragua and Guatemala drop out of school before completing primary grades.

Our work

OUR PROGRAMS

How we transform rural education

The core of our work is to minimize barriers children in rural communities face. We break down these barriers by improving:

ACCESS

A safe space is crucial to learning, so we start by ensuring the school itself is in good shape (if not we help build a new one using local materials and labor). Then we loop in the Ministry of Education and nearby farm owners to support teacher salaries and to provide curriculum materials, so that communities have plenty of support.

Quality

Our flagship Community Allies Program (CAP) is an adaptable, women-led, evidence-based approach that includes literacy, life skills, understanding climate change, and gender equity. CAP ensures kids are reading at grade level, brings those extremely at-risk back to school, and reduces primary school dropout and grade repetition.

Motivation

We promote children's successful transition from primary to secondary school –when they are at highest risk to drop out– by providing scholarships and by mentoring students through camps, interactive workshops, and home visits.

13,000+

kids have been educated since 2016

Measuring impact

Understanding our impact is in our DNA. In 2019-2020, we developed a cloud-based evaluation system powered by Salesforce to measure program impact so we can continue to iterate and improve our programs year after year.

Helping communities protect each other

During the 2020 pandemic, we rapidly expanded our W.A.S.H. educational programming--advocated by the World Bank as one of the most cost-effective ways to protect poor rural people during the pandemic--and distributed critical supplies to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

Training

We trained 1,510 students and 146 teachers in COVID-19 prevention, covering basic information about COVID-19, best hygiene practices, and social distancing guidelines. How we adapted our existing health program to the new context.

Supplies

We distributed masks, water, and sanitation supplies to 6,763 people, in partnership with a coalition of nonprofits. All to protect our youngest learners from COVID-19.How we tackled safely reaching remote communities.

Schools

We safely built three new schools during the pandemic. Community members who lost their homes during Hurricanes Iota and Eta sheltered there, and the brand new schools encouraged students to return to class after remote learning.How the community at Las Brumas built a new school in a pandemic.

Meet a community leader in the making

M. is one of our scholarship students who is motivated to transform her community. This year, in the midst of the pandemic, she lead workshops to help younger students in her community adjust to the new social distancing practices. M. wants to study computing and accounting, to teach students of her own one day, to learn to drive, and to travel like the women of Project Alianza.

‍Read her story here.

Keeping communities safe

PROTECTING COMMUNITIES

In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, there was little guidance from local governments on how to remain safe and mitigate the spread of the virus. And we know that when communities are fearful for their safety, education is not a priority. In response, we developed a community-led public health campaign across northern Nicaragua and in Los Naranjos, El Salvador to educate families about hygiene and handwashing practices. Our community educators provided information on how to protect vulnerable community members and quarantine if exposed, distributed hygiene kits to families, and a team of local women made and distributed masks.

Why we launched a public health campaign

EDUCATION TO FIT THE CONTEXT

Central American governments responded to the pandemic by shutting down schools and providing television or computer-based learning, but there was little support or guidance for children in rural areas. We formed an education coalition to rapidly adapt our education programs to distance learning. We discovered that less than half of children’s homes in Alianza communities have access to electricity, meaning students would not be able to access the national learning programs that were broadcasted over television and or the internet. However, we did learn that nine out of ten households had access to battery-operated radios. We partnered with Barrilete, an edutech company, to develop and implement a literacy program across a variety of mediums, including an interactive Radio Literacy Program for children without electricity as well as a mobile-based app, and traditional in-person instruction.

Why we started a radio literacy program

When children drop out of school they become susceptible to gang recruitment, the drug trade, early pregnancy and often migrate to survive. We knew the fallout of COVID-19 stood to exacerbate those risks.

Can't stop, won't stop

Whether it’s global pandemics, natural disasters, or political turmoil, our team and the communities we partner with won’t let anything stand in the way of improving education opportunities for kids everywhere.

Despite all the potential moments over the years when we could have let challenging circumstances get the best of us, we have continued to improve education and ensure it’s easy for anyone and everyone to learn. Since 2016, we’ve provided education to 12,000+ children living in isolated, mountainous farmland in Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala. We’ve built 13 schools across rural farmland in Nicaragua giving children a safe place to receive education, and communities have a place to hold parent meetings and use as a health center.

This year, we faced a unique challenge as schools sent kids home to learn. While kids in urban areas were able to transition to online learning, rural communities where we work don’t have access to wifi or sometimes even electricity. So we got creative. Our friends at Barrilete helped develop a hybrid interactive radio program so kids could continue learning to read during school shut downs and prevent drop outs in 2021.

The results were amazing:

9,000+

LEARNERS IN 38 DIFFERENT COMMUNITIES PARTICIPATED.

The Radio Literacy Program provided eight different interactive radio lessons, including workbooks and supplies, to young learners in rural households in Nicaragua and El Salvador.

8/10

OF KIDS COMPLETED THE TAKE-HOME EXERCISES.

We distributed workbooks to go along with the reading program, and 8 our of 10 students returned the workbook 100% complete.

6,000+

ADULT COMMUNITY MEMBERS LISTENED IN.

Many adults in the communities we work in were forced to drop out of school at an early age. Many participated in a literacy program for the first time in their lives alongside their siblings, children, and grandchildren.

How thousands learned to read by radio

We want education to go where it is needed. Therefore, we will continue to develop relevant radio content to increase early literacy and resiliency to crisis.

Ura Callejas
Education Technologist

On top of the devastating consequences of the worldwide pandemic, farming communities in Nicaragua have undergone the trauma of unprecedented flooding, destruction, and loss of life due to Hurricanes Eta and Iota that hit in November 2020.

Supporting families affected by Hurricanes Eta & Iota

Project Alianza is supporting communities by providing aid and counseling services to families who lost loved ones, homes, and to promote healing after trauma. We are partnering with a team from the University of California - Berkeley to provide long-term emergency evacuation and safety planning.

What we're doing to help

When one of our communities fell victim to heavy hurricane damage, Loyda led the distribution of crucial materials to families who lost their homes and belongings to the storm. Loyda also trained our new field staff in Guatemala and El Salvador to launch our new scholarship programs to provide extra support to children at risk of dropping out.

Thanks to the generous support from our partners, we make education accessible to children in remote farming communities.

The path to improving sustainability in the coffee industry

We are grateful for investments in our work to support education programs from coffee companies in North America and from farms in Central America. Here are a few of our partners in coffee:

Meet our partners in coffee

San Victor Coffee supports scholarship programs for children on their farm and have been a key force in launching our programming in Guatemala.

Tinker Coffee is an exceptional example of a roaster supporting their origin communities. With their support, we have implemented literacy programs and provided scholarships across Nicaragua.

Lifeboost Coffee provided a grant to build a new safe school in Nicaragua for over 200 children.

A special thank you.

We are grateful for our foundation and business partners who stepped up to provide additional support in 2020 that allowed us to adapt our programs and keep our team employed during this unprecedented year:

Meet Our Partners

David Weekley Foundation provided a $25,000 grant to help communities heal, rebuild, and plan for future crises.

Salesforce UK and Indianapolis mobilized their friends and hosted three campaigns to raise over $8,000 (and counting!) for scholarships to support children at risk of dropping out during the pandemic.

In addition to our $50,000 program grant to support literacy and girls programs, VoLo Foundation provided an additional $5,000 general operations grant to provide interim salary support for Central American women.

The McNulty Foundation, in partnership with the Aspen Global Leadership Network, awarded a $5,000 grant to Project Alianza from the Global Response Fund to support a public health and distance learning program created in partnership with Barrilete.

You did something amazing.

2020 Financials

Thanks to your generosity and with the guidance of our Board of Directors and Advisors, we raised $687,181 to invest in quality education and employment opportunities for Central American people.

revenue raised

Total expenses

Letter from our founder

Dear Alianza fam,
‍
In Northern Triangle countries and Nicaragua, we know that education has immense potential to lift rural youth out of extreme poverty and can address root problems of rural migration, crime and inequity. We know that talent and intelligence are equally distributed, but opportunity is not. However, persistent poor educational attainment across the region suggest that national education policies have not been prioritized to improve learning among rural children before the pandemic. Without innovative action from organizations like ours, the pandemic would leave rural children in these countries at a greater disadvantage than ever before. That’s why I’m proud to connect you with families who work tirelessly advocating for the right for their children to learn. I’m proud to work alongside a team that makes education more accessible for all children -- no matter which country they call home or how much they earn. We work in challenging environments, and focus on building an adaptable model to meet communities where they’re at. We equip leaders and educators within extremely poor rural communities to advocate for their children’s educational futures and improve their own economic resiliency. We make schools safer and closer to home. We adapt our teaching methods to fit students’ needs, so they begin to climb from fundamental literacy to comprehension to thinking critically about information they receive. Whether they learn by radio or in a traditional classroom setting, we make sure education is part of every child’s life. My promise to you, as I lead this important work, is to stay true to our values and continue to nurture the generosity of a global community to bring a vision of a better world to life.Thank you for being a part of our journey.

Without innovative action from organizations like ours, the pandemic would leave rural children in these countries at a greater disadvantage than ever before.

That’s why I’m proud to connect you with families who work tirelessly advocating for the right for their children to learn. I’m proud to work alongside a team that makes education more accessible for all children -- no matter which country they call home or how much they earn. We work in challenging environments, and focus on building an adaptable model to meet communities where they’re at. We equip leaders and educators within extremely poor rural communities to advocate for their children’s educational futures and improve their own economic resiliency. We make schools safer and closer to home. We adapt our teaching methods to fit students’ needs, so they begin to climb from fundamental literacy to comprehension to thinking critically about information they receive. Whether they learn by radio or in a traditional classroom setting, we make sure education is part of every child’s life. My promise to you, as I lead this important work, is to stay true to our values and continue to nurture the generosity of a global community to bring a vision of a better world to life.

Thank you for being a part of our journey.

2020 annual report

2020 brought unprecedented challenges and unexpected successes