Center for Educational Excellence

“Cree” in Spanish means to believe or that you believe.  It is also the Shoulder to Shoulder acronym for our education mission, Centro Regional para Excelencia en Educación or the Regional Center for Educational Excellence.

Believing is critical to the development of a sound and meaningful education system. Imparting knowledge demands that the individual allows for its reception. And in turn they can use this knowledge for the benefit of her/himself, others, the community, and ultimately the world.

We ask everyone who will shoulder this mission with us, to believe in the possibilities.

History

In Honduras and in The Frontera, public education suffers a lack of resources. From textbooks, to chairs, to teachers and lunches. Costs end up falling on parents, dissuading continued education. Many students attend school only through the sixth grade, some unable to read, write, add or subtract. Young girls, without hope succumb to peer pressure and become pregnant. Poor education and teen pregnancy support cyclical, generational poverty. Shoulder to Shoulder responds to these endemic social problems by generating opportunities through multiple programs.

In 2012 Shoulder to Shoulder with the Good Shepherd Catholic Community of Cincinnati, OH founded a private, primary bilingual school beginning our endeavor into education. In 2014, the school became public, Escuela Bilingüe Lenca Fronteriza, operated under the Secretary of Education and shoulder-to-shoulder with educators and parents we worked to provide missing resources.

The Bilingual School became our pilot for many of our current program: technology use in the classroom, scholarships to help needy families, robotics and more. Shoulder to Shoulder now assists public education in academic centers throughout the Frontera. Our vision has expanded and we aim for primary and secondary education to be accessible and of the highest quality, with STEM enrichment.

 CREE believes this vision is reachable.

Sustainability

We are continually evaluating our implementations at each academic center. We discern the obstacles they encounter in achieving excellence and success to help problem solve. Working with the Department of Education in Intibucá, the local Parent’s Association, and other stakeholders we implement a plan of action and adequate time frame. That way everyone is invested in the work. Charity without commitment yields unhealthy relationships of dependency.