Jóvenes Adelante Offers a Future of Hope via Education

By Don Krim 

“Think about your family and your immediate community. If your role models are negative, the only aspiration around you is illegal, and if your immediate environment stinks, then your well-being is going to take a real hit…For young people blessed to attain higher education, their positive and aspirational environment might consist of a college or university campus…From here they acquire the ‘wealth’ of lifelong relations. Relationships that will pay an incalculable difference and create incredible opportunity in the adult phase of their lives.”

-John Hope Bryant, Atlanta’s Operation Hope

These words apply to youths of San Miguel de Allende as accurately as to those of Chicago ghettos. Impoverished youth seeking real opportunities need at least a leg up. San Miguel with less crime, an economy beyond serving tourists, a sustainable environment, and less poverty in the campo require us to give that “leg up” through educational opportunity, leading to diversely skilled and knowledgeable citizens, growing a diverse and ever smarter economy. Whether completing high school, skills-based training or entrepreneurship, or university, it must happen.

The key investment for the future of San Miguel, whether to fulfill the hopes of aspirational youth or just to make the city a better place for your second home, is in education: in cultural, financial, technical, communicative, and civic skills, and literacy. A vision of hope for the family and community can only be sustained with an educated populace.

Less than a week before Jóvenes Adelante’s 2021 full application process even opens, almost 350 students have already submitted initial application forms to Jóvenes Adelante (JA). Over 140 have qualified to submit the full applications so far. Who knows how many more will apply before the deadline, Feb. 12th? This is unprecedented proof that hope and commitment in the populace for education are strong. Now we who are privileged to live here must help to support these aspiring kids. Their lives will change forever and San Miguel will be better for all of us.

JA is of the most comprehensive and successful student support programs in Mexico. If only JA had the capacity and the resources to support every aspiring kid at our doors…As it is, we hope to be able to support 25 new students in university and five in their high school senior year as part of our new pilot program—only 30 in total. And that number can only come to be with the support of more sponsors that we are still seeking from the community.

There is no better investment than hope fulfilled and hard work rewarded through education. You can make it happen.

“…I have fulfilled one of my biggest dreams thanks to you, which is to be an industrial engineer. Your support was an essential part of my life. You allowed me to enjoy my professional training process…Thank you for being that support at all times and thank you for trusting us scholarship recipients…for promoting our talent.” (Uriel Gutiérrez, 2020 JA graduate)

For more info about sponsoring a student, please contact donkrim@jovenesadelante.org.