The future is bright
Grande Center Mission Statement: Educating rural communities of El Salvador to thrive in the digital global economy.
Rutilio Grande School’s Mission: Catalyzing the next generation of leaders through bilingual, Catholic Education.
Grande Workforce Initiative’s Mission: Connecting adults to careers in tech.
Grande Data Services’ Mission: Creating a burgeoning industry in rural El Salvador providing world class data annotation services.
Our Approach
We seek to address the root causes of migration: economic and educational opportunities. Families migrate to financially support their families and provide more opportunities for their children. The campus will create a center of generational opportunity: school by day for children and workforce development at night and weekends, for parents and other adults in the community. This project will provide immediate benefits by incentivizing families to stay through immediate access for economic mobility and opportunity for their children. Long term, the graduates of both programs will be able to create a new economy in the region by joining the global network of the tech industry.
Historical Beginnings
The school is located in Chalatenango, a rural province in El Salvador with over 300,000 inhabitants. Its economy has been centered historically in agriculture and additionally was hit hard during the nation’s civil war from 1980 until 1992. Economic forces made agriculture no longer a sustainable economy which has led to forced migration to the USA with families looking for economic opportunity.
Mural of St. Oscar Romero and Fr. Rutilio Grande, SJ martyred during the Salvadoran Civil War and inspiration for this project.
The organization is named after Grande to honor his work in rural El Salvador. Our dream is to continue his legacy focusing on education, justice, and opportunity to those in underserved rural communities.
The economy is now highly dependent on remittances from Salvadoran immigrants. There have been other impacts of emigration like separated families, mental health, a further fractured education system, and loss of most talented young people for long term economic development. We hope to bring fruit to the seeds that were sown by the martyrs.
