We at Abriendo Mentes are excited to announce that our Summer Matching Challenge is back! As usual, every dollar you donate will be matched by a generous private donor, effectively doubling your donation, and doubling the educational opportunities for our students.

Abriendo Mentes (which is Spanish for ‘Opening Minds’) is a nonprofit organization empowering individuals in Guanacaste, Costa Rica to access enhanced education and employment opportunities, helping local families to achieve economic stability.

We are a small, grass roots, community-based project, taking pride in making a big impact with limited resources. We give local residents the skills they need to enhance their lives through innovative and engaging education programs.

Guanacaste is a rural region of Western Costa Rica. Despite its natural beauty, limited infrastructure and scarce resources have created major disparities in the local education system compared to the rest of the country. Only 12% of the adult population in Guanacaste have graduated from high school. On average, 7th grade is the highest education level attained.

We believe in the value of education. Established in 2009 at the request of local residents, Abriendo Mentes offers three pillars of year round programming: educational programming to developing English and vocational skills, technology programs to develop IT skills, and community engagement to enhance health and quality of life.

Our ethos is to make learning fun and our aim is to empower the local community.

To raise money for this programming, we launched our annual Summer Matching Challenge. This year, we’ve introducing a new twist. For each milestone we reach the Abriendo Mentes volunteers are going to complete a crazy challenge. Plus, each time we reach a milestone, a local company has generously offered to donate $250 to our campaign!

Our volunteer challenges will start at $1,000 with the Clown Wig Challenge where all of our volunteers will wear a clown wig for whole a day through their normal programming in the classroom, on the soccer field, wherever! At $2,000 we will attempt to cram all 17 Abriendo Mentes volunteers in one car in less than 60 seconds and at $3,000 we will take on our students in a challenging Tico-themed obstacle course.

Our most daunting challenge will take place at the $4,000 milestone, where we will swim out to Islote Chocoyayas; an island off our local beach. We will do the swim enough times to complete a marathon that’s 26.3 miles of ocean swimming!

Finally, at $6,000 we will celebrate reaching our goal by slimming our Director, Lindsay, with help from our students! If we make it to this milestone, with the help of our matching donor, we’ll have reached our goal of $12,000!

These generous donations will help support the important education and community development programs that we offer, providing vital funding for English and computer classes for children and adults, as well as extensive extra-curricular activities and community engagement programming for almost 400 participants in the villages of Brasilito and Potrero.

By attending our programs, our participants are learning valuable skills that will help them attain employment and economic stability.

Please follow our progress on Facebook here and on our AbriendoMentes.org website here.

As you can see from the Paypal screenshot below, I have just donated $100 and would encourage you to please do the same… It’s simple, quick and easy and you’d be making a big difference.

1. To make a one time donation with Paypal, please visit this page.




2. To see how you can help by becoming an AM Champion, please see more here.




3. To make a donation by check, please make all checks payable to “Guanacaste Literacy Inc.” and mail to: Attn: Denton Ragland. 3310 Crosspark Lane. Houston, TX 77007. USA




4. To make a donation by bank transfer please see our bank details on this page.

Andrew Makarik

to@welovecostarica.com

Andrew Makarik is the main editor of WeLoveCostaRica, a fan of this sunny country. He is also a loving husband and a has a lovely daughter. By being a devoted family man and the biggest Costa Rica fan, he wants to make more people feel at home there. WeLoveCostaRica unites people and helps them find new home or a new travel destination. This website is a friendly community where everyone can find not only information, but also new friends and travel pals. Andrew is also passionate about IT and programming, so he himself maintains a friendly atmosphere in this cozy environment of WeLoveCostaRica.com.