Programa Velasco

In essence, what we are trying to accomplish is our mission: to educate and empower children and families to crate social change in El Salvador.

Our vision is: Families that thrive; educated and emboldened to interrupt generational cycles of poverty and build peaceful community.

For our main programs, these are our recent goals:

Goals for Early Childhood Education:
1) Improve the quality of education and instruction at the child development center.

Goals for Family Support Services:
1) Improve the quality of social services
2) Expand access to social support services

Goals for Women's Economic Empowerment:
1) Build the Women's Empowerment Project into a replicable project model with proven success.
2) Improve the retention rate of WEP participants and their continued engagement with the project.
3) Ensure the WEP can operate independently of grant funding.

Strategies for Early Childhood Education:

1) Edit the curriculum to include research-based programming on social-emotional development and language acquisition.
2) Fund a teacher's salary
3) Edit the curriculum and the center's protocol to reflect a trauma informed approach.
4) Increase the teachers' and staff members' knowledge and capacity to implement the curriculum by hosting quarterly trainings.

Strategies for Family Support Services:

1) Systemize the social support services into evidence-based clinical intervention models informed by an appropriate theoretical focus (trauma-informed care, social-emotional learning, etc.) as well as best practices from the field.
2) Compliment current services with adult literacy classes and instruction on financial literacy.
3) Include funding for a second social worker/family support specialist to assist with social service programs.
4) Implement an engagement program for children and families who once were enrolled in the center so they can continue participating in certain activities.
5) Lower barriers to participation. This will help prevent families from “falling through the cracks" and allow families who are genuinely interested in taking advantage of the opportunities available to overcome logistical barriers that limit them from participating.
6) Two Parent workshops for families enrolled in CDIAA and San Ramon: Expand parent support workshops to include families whose children are not enrolled in center; a total of two groups will be held – one with families of children enrolled in the center and one with families whose children aren't.

Strategies for Women's Economic Empowerment
1) Contract a single individual or group of individuals with expertise in economic empowerment and small businesses to implement the entire economic empowerment course.
2) Develop an in-house curriculum for course content based on skills to be acquired by participants at specific stages within the project.
3) Synchronize the economic empowerment course objectives and desired skill set with the mentorship component of the project.
4) Integrate a comprehensive focus on health into the project.
5) Lower barriers to participation in the project. This will help prevent women from “falling through the cracks" in the project, allowing women who are genuinely interested in taking advantage of the opportunities available within the project to overcome logistical barriers that limit their success.
6) Differentiate the WEP experience for first and second year participants.
7) Strengthen the savings and lending group.
8) Hold quarterly gatherings for WEP graduates
9) Include WEP graduates in a twice yearly evaluation process.
10) Create a sponsorship program for women in the program.

The capabilities for meeting our goals include the following:

1) Committed staff and board of directors to invest in human and monetary resources to implementing this strategic plan

2) Much of the ground work is already in place, the goals we have identified are improving the quality of our programs and expanding access to them. To do this, we will seek additional funding from a variety of sources.

3) Our team has the background in program management to implement necessary changes.

Our early childhood education program has provided over 341 scholarships, supported over 292 families with social work and counseling services and has invested over $11,200 into women owned businesses.