Mission Santa Maria

Mission Santa Maria is dedicated to helping impoverished, abused, and neglected Ecuadorian children receive high quality education. We have partnered with local organizations to create a sanctuary for these children for over 17 years. We believe that alleviating poverty begins with faith and love, and continues through education, and a challenge and support into professional and family life. Our programs include Esperanza Home for Children: a childrens foster home, Santa Maria del Fiat: a K-12 school, and Post High School Opportunities. Our goal is that the care and holistic education these children receive will lift them out of poverty through dignified, sustainable incomes. Esperanza Home for Children: All children are placed in the Esperanza Home for Children, a residential foster home, after surviving abuse or neglect, and until they can safely return to their families or live with relatives, or they are adopted. Provided sanctuary, shelter, education, and care, children can live at Esperanza until they are eighteen. The missionary sisters (similar to Mother Teresas nuns) who run Esperanza have dedicated their lives to creating a safe and loving environment while providing daily meals, clothing, medical attention, enrollment in school, or specialized education. There is also an on-site team of psychologists and social workers. But the most important factor to the childrens healing and progress is the love and care given to them by the missionary sisters. Mission Santa Maria has partnered with Esperanza to cover the cost of education (school fees, school supplies, and school uniforms) for every child living at the home. Esperanza Home for Children: Sometimes, children arrive at the home having never attended school in the past. To support the education of these children we provide tutors for homeschooling until the children are caught up and can enter Santa Maria Del Fiat School. Mission Santa Maria also supports special projects and extra staff to alleviate the caregiver burden. Mission Santa Maria maintains an emergency food fund to ensure that the children always have something to eat. When necessary, we have also undertaken larger scale projects such as the construction of new bathrooms for the boys or safety updates in the kitchen. Esperanza Home for Children: In 2023, Mission Santa Maria provided school tuition, uniforms and school supplies for 67 children at the home. Mission Santa Maria employed five staff members to assist with meeting the unique educational and psychological needs of the children. The staff members lead homeschooling for children with a history of educational neglect, after school tutoring for all the children, and help with laundry and cleaning in the homes where the children live. In 2023, Mission Santa Maria took on many infrastructure projects at Esperanza Home. Mission Santa Maria built a new home for the little girls, completed updates to the industrial kitchen, bought washers and dryers for the home where the babies stay, and made repairs to the playground on campus to ensure safety of the children.Finally, in 2023 Mission Santa Maria continued providing for extracurricular activities for the children at the home. Esperanza Home for Children: All children 3 years old and above were enrolled in soccer and ballet classes in the local town. The children have fun, practice an array of developmental skills, are better focused in school, and their caregivers get a short break when they attend these classes. Santa Maria del Fiat is a semi-private preschool through secondary school that has been providing high quality education to children of the surrounding area for 27 years. It is one of the best schools in Santa Elena province, with over 1,200 students. Some children travel 90 minutes one-way by bus to attend this school. Mission Santa Maria has been a longtime partner of Santa Maria Del Fiat, providing scholarships for children that cannot afford the $25/month tuition. Mission Santa Marias scholarship program allows children from the poorest communities a chance to attend school.In addition to the scholarship program, Mission Santa Maria provides general funding support to Santa Maria Del Fiat to ensure continued operation. Santa Maria Del Fiat is a semi-private school, whereby the government pays most of the teachers salaries, but also mandates the cost of tuition, total staff requirements, minimum salary for all staff, and administrative requirements. Santa Maria del Fiat School:This creates a structural deficit whereby the mission school cannot generate enough income to cover the operational expenses. Mission Santa Maria provides funding support for this structural deficit to ensure that the school remains open and can continue to educate children. Finally, Mission Santa Maria is invested in maintaining the high-quality education provided at Santa Maria Del Fiat, as well as supporting improvements. Mission Santa Maria runs several projects to enhance the education at the school. Santa Maria del Fiat School:In 2023, 237 students received full scholarships through Mission Santa Maria. This number includes the children living at Esperanza Home for Children as well as children from resource limited families who cannot afford the $25 per month tuition. Many of these children would simply not attend school if it were not for our scholarship program.2023 was the second full year of the Scholarship Plus Program, a program aimed to better meet the comprehensive needs of students. The program employs a social worker to complete a needs assessment of each family in the scholarship program. Based on the assessment, the Scholarship Plus Program provides additional scholarships for uniforms and school supplies (167 students), and bus fare and food (39 students) to students experiencing extreme food insecurity. Santa Maria del Fiat School:In 2023, Mission Santa Maria continued to build on the English language program at Santa Maria Del Fiat to increase the quality of English language education at the school. The program continues to allow the English teachers to receive continuing professional training, help with lesson plan development, and teaching observation and feedback from an international English teacher trainer benefitting 1,280 students. Mission Santa Maria supports 2 additional English teacher salaries at the school to decrease class size. Finally, in 2023, Mission Santa Maria piloted the first ever technology course at the Mission School, benefiting 1,280 students.

Post High-School Opportunities:After high school, there are three programs that Mission Santa Maria has to help our children find work, education, and a better life: the University Program, the DP World Shipping program and the Girls Transition Program.University Program All of the students in this program come from Esperanza Home for Children or from families in our scholarship program at Santa Maria del Fiat school, and would otherwise have no hope of receiving post-high school education. Our University Program pays for housing, food, healthcare, and university required supplies for each student during their years in university. A university diploma can lead to a well-paying job in Ecuador, helping these young men and women to be the first in their families to escape poverty. In 2023, Mission Santa Maria supported 23 students to be able to attend university and 5 students graduated. To date, the university program has 9 graduates. Post High-School Opportunities:DP World Program In 2022, MSM launched a work-study program in partnership with DP World, a multinational logistics and shipping company. Students study at Escuela Superior Politcnica del Litoral (ESPOL) while working an internship at the port. ESPOL helps them learn the necessary technical and engineering skills for a career with DP World, while the internship provides them with an opportunity to work, and learn practical skills that will be useful throughout their career. Opportunities like this are scarce in Ecuador, and this program helps set students up for a thriving future. In 2023, 5 students benefited from this program. Post High-School Opportunities:Girls Transition Program For many years, MSM has souught to support the vulnerable group of young adults that age out of Esperanza Home for Children at 18 years old, but do not meet the academic qualifications to attend university or enter our work-study program. In 2023, MSM launched a transition program with four young women. The program provides safe housing while the women become financially independent. Having no family, and no access to social services after 18 years old, these women would have nowhere to go without this program.