Tia Katys Corner

The local Educarte team and I are thrilled to announce that, thanks to a wonderful new partnership with the U.S. non-profit, Escuela de Victoria, we have just opened the first-ever private school serving children with disabilities in this community.

As many of you know, Educarte is the Mexican non-profit that I founded in 2016. From 2016 to 2022 the local team that leads Educarte and I focused our efforts on providing at risk young people in Puerto Peñasco with access to educational opportunities that could help them transform their futures. Thanks to generous support from so many on both sides of the border, during our first seven years we were able to provide hundreds of local children with the resources and support they needed to go to school and thrive inside and outside the classroom.

During this time, we have received requests for support from many families of children with disabilities. Unfortunately, however, unlike in the United States, public schools in Mexico are not required by law to serve children with disabilities. Sadly, we learned that local public schools do not accept most children with special needs. The more we learned about the lack of services for children with disabilities in this community, the more we realized we had to try to do something.

So, in January of 2022 we opened the first ever multi-disciplinary clinic in Puerto Peñasco serving young people with disabilities. Thanks to a wonderful partnership with Arizona State University’s College of Health Solutions, our clinic has grown and thrived. Unfortunately, however, after opening the clinic we learned that most of the children receiving therapy services were not attending school. Because local public schools are not able to accommodate many of their special needs, most of these kids were left isolated at home, without access to educational opportunities that could help them reach their potential and participate fully in life.

Once again, we decided we had to try to do something – we just weren’t sure what. Fortunately, this past January we received a visit from Nick Shuerman who is the Founder of Victory Schools in Arizona. Nick and his team operate five very successful private schools serving kids with special needs in the Phoenix area. Victory Schools use the latest evidence-based practices to help students gain the skills they need to live full, happy and productive lives.

Nick shared with us that he had recently formed a U.S. non-profit organization called ‘Escuela de Victoria’ with a mission of providing special education opportunities for children in developing nations. After months of discussions and visits back and forth, a wonderful new partnership was born. Nick and his team have agreed to help raise funds and provide ongoing training and support to help our Educarte team open a private school serving children with disabilities. Called ‘Escuela de Victoria’, this new school will use the same hands-on and multi-sensory approach to learning and Applied Behavioral Analysis methodology used by Victory Schools Their proven approach will help local students with disabilities reach their potential and participate fully in life.

Over the past few months our Educarte team has been extremely busy overseeing construction of classrooms, bathrooms and a school office on our existing property. They have also traveled to Arizona to receive training and support while several members of Nick’s team have been traveling frequently to Puerto Peñasco to train teachers and help set up classrooms. After a long and exhausting summer, we could not be more thrilled to announce that ‘Escuela de Victoria’ opened on August 28^th. This first year the school consists of three classrooms: one serving 12 children from kindergarten through third grade, one classroom serving 12 children form third through fifth grade, and one classroom teaching vocational and life skills to older students and young adults with disabilities.

Although we are incredibly grateful for the support we have received from Nick and his team that has made this possible, there is still much more to do. We would like to expand the school to serve many more very special students and to offer infant stimulation and early intervention programs. But we need your help to make this possible. We are hoping to raise funds to be able to add at least one elementary classroom next year and to launch an early intervention program to serve children with disabilities under the age of five.

To make a tax-deductible donation to support our efforts go to www. AmigosEducarte.org.

Mil Gracias!