Greetings!  

Our entire NYC-based team would like to thank all of those who kindly reached out to us in response to the Sandy super-storm. Our office is located in the southern part of Manhattan and we were out of electricity for nearly a week, with no email. All is somewhat back to normal for our NYC-based Worldfund team, but a number of our board members and supporters are still without electricity. Many others in our area remain in extremely difficult circumstances for which we extend our prayers.

On a happier note, we are quickly approaching the 10th year anniversary of Worldfund's incorporation, 9 December. It is a particularly auspicious date, as it marks the feast of Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin, the indigenous Mexican who reported the apparition of the Virgin of Guadalupe in 1531 and whose tilma bears her image.

Ten years ago, we naively, but passionately, embarked upon the mission of raising the quality of education for all children in Latin America. Our work has been more challenging than we anticipated and the way we achieve our mission has evolved. We've identified the region's most urgent need - improving teacher quality - and moved nimbly to create and launch programs that bring best teaching and leadership practices to public and under-resourced schools in the region. What has remained constant is our commitment to providing opportunity for students to break the cycle of poverty and lead dignified lives.  

We present to you our newly-honed Motivating Beliefs, Vision and Mission:

• We believe a quality education is every person's human right.
• We believe education is a cornerstone of individual actualization, civic health and economic growth.
• We believe teachers and principals are key to learning.
• We believe raising educational quality in Latin America requires changing mindsets and practices of teachers and principals.
• We believe high performing educators have an extraordinarily valuable and difficult vocation and deserve to be treated with great respect.

Our vision is for every child in Latin America to benefit from exceptional educators who inspire them to learn the skills necessary for dignified work and life.

Our mission is to deliver world-class training and ongoing support to teachers and principals from underserved schools in Latin America, fundamentally impacting the system from the bottom up.

We would love to know what you think!  

As testament to our growth, this past year saw incredible momentum and the greatest amount of change and progress since Worldfund's founding.

• We made important staff changes and additions to Worldfund's NYC, Mexico and Brazil operations. 
• We meaningfully expanded our board, and reinvigorated and realigned our committee structure to migrate more programmatic decision-making and fundraising responsibilities to Brazil and Mexico.
• We brought our LISTO and STEM training programs completely in-house, having created world-class content and recruited a cadre of top-quality local trainers.
• We partnered with the Inter-American Development Bank to conduct the most rigorous evaluation available, a randomized control trial (RCT), on our IAPE teacher training program. This represents the first ever RCT conducted on an in-service teacher training program in Latin America.

Our challenges ahead are clear as we continue to advance our critical mission. What is our charge for the next 12-18 months? 

• Continue to crystallize our messaging and to get the word out to more people using social media and other means. Please follow  and follow Worldfund
• Tweaking, further evaluating and growing our signature programs LISTO, IAPE and STEM;
• Laying the groundwork to launch Worldfund Colombia;
• Raising donations to support program expansion and follow-through so that we can more effectively work with many more teachers and principals to reach of goal of impacting over 2 million students by 2015.

I am indebted to the extended Worlfund family for your tireless support and care during the past ten years. Thanks to you, Worldfund has trained over 2,000 teachers and principals in the region, who impact over 350,000 students annually.

Together, we really can move the needle on education quality in Latin America. We need your continued help now more than ever, and we look forward to another exciting ten years.

Warm Regards,

 
Luanne Zurlo

We are thrilled to report that Worldfund's LISTO principal training program has been recognized by the 2012 CLASE Forum as one of the 20 most innovative educational practices in Mexico!

On October 29-30 in Mexico City, LISTO Program Director Dolores Gonzalez and Worldfund Mexico Director Elena Espinosa participated in the bi-annual Forum.  They shared details and fielded questions about our groundbreaking training model and how it helps principals struggling to build effective schools in Mexico's neediest communities.

This year's Forum will form the basis of a "Declaration CLASE 2012," a document outlining key action points for the country's education agenda over the next six years.   

Read more here.