La Esperanza Granada
Giving a Hand Up, Not a Hand Out
La Esperanza Granada
Giving a Hand Up, Not a Hand Out
About Us
La Esperanza Granada is a non-profit, non-political and non-religious educational NGO, funded by both private and public donations.
‘Born’ in 2002, we started in a small village on the outskirts of Granada, Nicaragua, and we now help more than 400 children and young people in poverty-stricken areas.
We work with both the approval of the Ministry of Education and local communities to foster interest in learning and raise self-esteem.
We are a dedicated charity that supports children in rural neighbourhoods, by giving them access to quality education to help improve future prospects break the cycle of poverty.
Giving a Hand Up, not a Hand Out
We try to help in a noninvasive way, working directly with the children and with the local schools, learning centers, teachers, and parents to meet educational needs.
Our goal is to help children and young people to better navigate life, thanks to a well-rounded education that includes basic competencies and a wide range of life skills. LEG education is non-formal and we make learning fun by stimulating the children’s interests and imaginations, all the while raising their esteem.
Our Work
Our projects focus on education at the most basic level:
Our projects provide access to quality education to children and young people in neighbourhoods across Granada. Along with our sponsorship and after-school club programmes, we work to provide the young people we support with the resources they need to have a successful education, such as school uniforms, textbooks, life-skills workshops and training, mentoring support, sanitary products, bicycles, and more. What’s more, La Esperanza provides young people with a community which encourages them to flourish, both personally and academically.
Our History
One evening in the summer of 2002, a group of travellers was chatting and among the group was Bill Harper, who talking about helping poor children with school supplies in Granada.
The school, which only had two teachers for 50 children, was suddenly overrun with 100 students. At the hostel that night, Bill expressed what was to become the motto of La Esperanza Granada: These people need a hand up, not a handout. And so La Esperanza Granada was founded.
There was no grant from a foundation; there was no initial sum of money from some well-meaning philanthropist, no mission group, no long planning sessions working on theories, etc.
There were simply people who cared and were willing to contribute their time, enthusiasm, and expertise.
La Esperanza’s first projects were about helping mothers start their own businesses, increasing the water supply to the village, and taking kids for dental checkups. Our original mission was not about education, but about lifting the community from multiple angles.
Thanks to Bill’s enthusiasm and many volunteers who gave life to La Esperanza Granada we have been able to support many children.
All of these people, and the countless volunteers who started trickling in five years ago, are now a broad river of caring people – this is the history of La Esperanza Granada.
Bill said, we “give a hand up, not a hand out” because he didn’t want the community to be dependent on us forever. Bill also said we should have zero administrative costs and be 100% volunteer-driven with no participation fees. Anyone on payroll would need to be from the local community.
