Spark Ventures

Through our partnership, Hope Community School provides high-impact nutrition, education and healthcare programming to over 400 vulnerable children and their families in Zambia.

At the launch of the Spark Ventures partnership in 2007, Hope served 70 children in a rented facility with no paid staff, no supplies, meals or health services. Today, Hope Community School has a thriving campus, including a preschool, primary school, orphanage, library, health clinic, and multi-purpose building serving over 400 children and their families year-round. Students have books, uniforms and supplies. Hope’s salaried teachers receive professional development and continuing education. With a 100% primary school graduation rate for every class since 2010, Hope students receive one of the best primary educations in the area. A scholarship program encourages Hope School graduates to continue their secondary school education.

The robust meal program at Hope School provides students with what is often their only or best meal of the day. The nurse at Hope's on-campus clinic coordinates testing and administers treatment for malaria as well as other common diseases and illnesses. The entire community has been receiving education and awareness training and resources to address the global coronavirus pandemic.

The Educator Empowerment Initiative, launched in 2020, is building global partnerships between US-based teachers and Hope Community School. With an expanding pen-pal program, real-time Skype conversations and teacher exchanges, Spark is improving educational opportunities as well as encouraging understanding and bonds of friendship across the world.

Spark has created over 50 jobs through partnership support, at the school and including agriculture jobs at poultry and vegetable farms launched to contribute food and profits back to the school. Spark has helped to create an overall enhanced organizational structure with job descriptions and reporting structure, leadership development and strategic planning.

Adults in the impoverished Hope community are offered skills training in farming and handicrafts. The recently formed “Village Banking” initiative encourages women to use provided supplies and skills to sell their vegetables and crafts and save​ a small percentage of their profits on a weekly basis. The program is educating and empowering members of the community to understand and attain financial security through business and budgeting training.

Elderly women participate in the “Women of Worth” program, formed to fulfill nutritional, healthcare, emotional and social needs with social interaction, food supplies, skills training, and guest speakers.

Since 2007, over 500 Spark travelers have helped with leadership training and financial accountability, launched a computer lab, inspired hundreds of children through a reading program, and provided medical care through annual clinics.

In 2013, Spark Ventures expanded our partnerships to include Las Tías in León, Nicaragua. Las Tías was started by 8 businesswomen in 1989 after the revolution in their country. They began reaching out to street children and 20 years later, they had two thriving community centers providing meals, education, health care, and job skills training – serving over 150 youth annually.

But their funding sources were slowly disappearing, jeopardizing their high-impact work. Spark stepped in to cover salaries, expand their meal program, renovate outdated facilities, support vocational skills training for adolescents, and hire additional social workers to support the mental health of children coming from unstable homes or with a history of child abuse. Before Spark, Las Tias struggled with leadership transitions; Spark has provided succession planning and strategic advice which have strengthened the leadership team.

Since the launch of our partnership in 2013, more than 120 people have traveled with Spark to support this work, while also helping expand the Las Tías library, helping with leadership succession, and creating a new children’s activity room.

The Entreamigos community center was founded in 2006 in the heart of San Pancho, Mexico. What started as teaching arts and crafts on a picnic table in a neighborhood front yard has grown into a vibrant center dedicated to education, environmentalism, womens’ empowerment, youth and their families.

Spark Ventures, provides funding and strategic support to Entreamigos’ Women’s Entrepreneur group, which empowers women of the lowest socio-economic level. These women meet regularly and produce products from recycled goods that are sold in Entreamigos’ gallery. The women are paid for their products and also gain valuable business and life skills.

Spark Ventures also supports the “Jungle Group” – an after-school program for children grades 2-6 who are behaviorally and academically challenged, providing diverse educational initiatives, tutoring, mentoring and more.

Spark has also provided funding to support Entreamigos’ city-wide recycling program, which was created by and continues to be managed by Entreamigos.

Since the launch of our partnership in 2017, more than 70 people have traveled with Spark to support this work, while also helping to provide school supplies, arts & crafts supplies, books, launch a photography program and sponsor recycling bins.

The culmination of Spark Ventures’ careful search for a local partner was celebrated at its 2020 Fall Gala with the announcement of its partnership with I Grow Chicago, a community-led organization whose programs closely align with Spark’s mission to provide sustainable solutions to lift communities out of poverty and empower future leaders. I Grow Chicago was founded in 2013 at the corner of 64th and Honore – in Chicago’s south side neighborhood of Englewood. From one woman’s idea to a whole neighborhood’s heart, I Grow Chicago is the story of people coming together and working for change. It’s a history of violence and trauma but also one of hope, resiliency and most of all, love.
 
With years of disinvestment and structural racism, Englewood had become an opportunity and resource desert, leading many into the street economy to survive. Children couldn’t play outside, and residents stayed in their homes out of fear.
 
Today, the Peace House stands at the same corner where the seed for I Grow Chicago was planted. It serves as the community center on the neighborhood’s Peace Campus – a gathering and healing zone made up of 6 previously vacant lots and 2 homes. This campus is home to nearly 15 different programs, all run by community members and volunteers that assist every generation of West Englewood. Residents learn the tools they need to stop violence before it starts, from how to take a deep breath before reacting, to how to apply for and succeed in jobs.
 
Spark Ventures provides funding to support I Grow Chicago’s “Born to Thrive” program. This program now provides in-person educational support for remote learning on the Peace Campus. Forty of the neighborhood’s most vulnerable children and teens receive technology and internet access, school supplies, social-emotional support, peer-to-peer activities, meals and snacks, transportation, and advocacy. Thanks in part to Spark’s support, I Grow Chicago has employed three community members to staff the “Born to Thrive” program. They are educating and advocating for children at a critical time, in a neighborhood where the barriers to virtual learning disproportionately affect students.

For the past 10+ years we have brought over 700 travelers to Zambia, Nicaragua and Mexico to see our work in action. These trips are unforgettable journeys bringing to life our unique approach to philanthropy and our on-the-ground partnerships.

Our experiences are culturally empowering, mutually beneficial and focused on lasting impact. Take part in meaningful engagement with community leaders and see our work first-hand while experiencing the best of the countries we work in. Our expertly curated adventures will introduce you to unique cultural highlights, historical insights & natural wonders.

For a full list of upcoming experiences, visit www.sparkventures.org/travel