El Puente de Esperanza
(The Bridge of Hope)
El Puente De Esperanza - Queretaro, Mexico
Queretaro, Mexico
Contact bridgeofhopeAK@yahoo.com

These Halls will sing again..... Something wonderful is happening within the old music conservatory building of the Diocese of Queretaro, Mexico. The building, abandoned for 30 years, is now home to El Puente de Esperanza (The Bridge of Hope), a residential educational facility for women and young people.

Under the guidance of Conchita Walker of Hoonah, Alaska, room after room of the old conservatory, rented from the diocese, is being remodeled and refashioned for the use of teenage boys and girls attending high school, young adult men and women attending university (most of them the first in their families ever to do so!), and women and their children growing and learning together.

With a staff of Mexican and US personnel and volunteers, El Puente de Esperanza provides a home where bright and determined young people out of orphanages can continue their education through high school and university. Its associated program, Las Posadas de Maria (Mary's Inn), brings women off the streets where they have been selling handicrafts, and teaches them sewing, child-rearing, cooking and other skills, in preparation for the time after five years when they will move back to their homes and new sewing rooms, and earn a living without displacing themselves and their children to the big city.

After 30 years of crumbling in silence, the halls of the conservatory once again ring with the sounds of music and laughter, shouting and playing -- and squabbling and all the other sounds of a lively and healthy home life!

What is El Puente?
Learning skills at El Puente de Esperanza
Learning skills at El Puente de Esperanza

  • El Puente defies description! Briefly, it is a residential educational facility. But those three words reveal virtually nothing of the character of the "Bridge of Hope" in the central Mexican highlands.
  • El Puente is an opportunity for young people, beginning at junior high school age, to move from orphanages to a community-type setting where they can continue their education through high school and university.
  • El Puente is a home where these young people can learn faith and values, manners and skills for living such as sewing, carpentry, cooking, cleaning, personal responsibility and more.
  • El Puente is shoulders to cry on, arms to lean on, friends to laugh with, peer support to break out of the cycle of poverty and move into a different level of economic life.
  • El Puente is the supportive environment of caring adults that talks women and children through crisis after crisis, that empowers people to handle for themselves the daily business of living in a busy city, that provides love and encouragement in an often hostile world.
  • El Puente is also the parent of "Posadas de Maria," an opportunity for women who have taken to selling handicrafts on the streets with their children (These women are known locally as "Marias"). At El Puente they can live without fear in healthy conditions, while they learn to sew to make new and different kinds of handwork to sell. After five years, each will have her own sewing room at her own home, and will be able to leave the city and stay with her family while still earning a living to support her children.
  • El Puente is a place where the children of the Marias can play happily with loving supervision while their mothers study, and when the children are older, they can go to school and have a place to study. As with the older children, they learn faith and values and skills for living -- and never need to return to the streets to beg.
  • El Puente is far more than an institution, or a "residential educational facility.". In short, El Puente is "home."

Types of assistance needed..... Our monthly operating costs are $11,000, which includes $120 to pay for each student's basic needs and educational expenses. It also includes transportation for the student to visit home once a month. Parents are too poor to help.

  • Scholarship assistance for individual university students.
  • School financing for individual elementary and secondary students.
  • Donations of pretty dresses for graduations and other celebrations, or of fabrics and patterns so the girls can make their own dresses.
  • Donations of money for suits for boys for graduations.
  • Schools supplies.
  • Sewing supplies, patterns and fabrics.
  • Financial support for summer sewing and carpentry camps in rural Queretaro.
  • Financial assistance and church goods and art to renovate the building's old chapel.
  • Financial assistance for building of sewing rooms attached to houses of Marias in rural Queretaro.

We need volunteer time, talent and travel to help with any of the programs!

1.  VOLUNTEER COORDINATOR:  Managing the work and needs of individual volunteers and volunteer groups, doing training and evaluations, and coordinating with the El Puente staff.

  2.  OFFICE ASSISTANT:  Assisting the Administrator in clerical work, running errands, and making contacts in the city for donations.

3.  PRESCHOOL TEACHER:  Providing daily care and educational and recreational activities for our little band of cherubs.

4.  ELEMENTARY TEACHERS:  Leading the team of elementary school volunteers in support of the public school agenda, tutoring and assisting with homework, and organizing creative and recreational activities.

5.  TEACHER OF ENGLISH AS A SECOND LANGUAGE: Teaching English to small groups of high school and college students.

6.  SEWING ROOM ASSISTANT:  Assisting in all phases of sewing, marketing and doing inventory of sewing products.  Quilting or other sewing experience necessary; Spanish level may be moderate.

7.  HEALTH CARE PRACTITIONER:  Assessing minor illnesses, supervising medication, taking residents to medical appointments, keeping records, and teaching preventative health, nutrition, and first aid.

8.  CARPENTRY AND MAINTENANCE PERSON:  Carpentry, electrical, plumbing, and general repairs and improvements.  Spanish level may be moderate.

  Anyone with the "3 F?s" of fluency, flexibility and fun who would like to join our El Puente family for the experience of a lifetime is invited to write Jean at bridgeofhopeAK@yahoo.com.

Interior courtyard of El Puente de Esperanza
Interior courtyard of El Puente de Esperanza
El Puente de Esperanza founder, Conchita Walker has formed non-profit corporations to receive tax-deductible donations in support of El Puente both in Mexico and the United States of America. In the U.S., donations can be sent to:

Mary's Inn Foundation
Box 389
Hoonah, AK 99829
conchita7_99@yahoo.com

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