The guiding principle in the formation of Hogar Irekani is education. In Mexico, many orphanages finish caring for children when they turn twelve. The young teens are then forced to leave the orphanage and try to survive. Some try to return to the family situation from which they had been taken because it offered no support due to drugs, prostitution, poverty, or incarceration. If they are able to find work, it is low paying, undesirable, and unstable. Many students have not even finished elementary at that time because they started very late in school. (Several of our teens will be fifteen when they graduate from primary school in the spring of 2015.) Under this system, children are semi-illiterate and very unprepared to even survive besides succeed in the world. They are doomed to fail, no matter what their potential might have been.
Thus our primary goal is to provide shelter and loving support for teenagers and their younger siblings to continue their education until they have finished it and can successfully support themselves. This goal names no age. It gives no finishing point. For some this will take longer than others.
Our elementary or primary students attend a nearby public school. Our teens attend several different public and private secondary schools and vocational schools based on their abilities and goals. As the students age, we will find many more enrolling in the preparatory schools and universities. Where they had no opportunities, now they envision themselves as doctors and lawyers, as English teachers and fashion designers, as artists and musicians, as a worker in the tourist industry, and as accountants and beauticians. They inspire us to help them.
Defend the weak and the fatherless; uphold the cause of the poor and the oppressed. (Psalm 82:3 NIV).
Educate Us! Secondary and Beyond!