FIE 2021 winning project seeks to break the cycle of poverty

17 •  Feb •  2021

With 12 schools and more than 14 thousand students nationwide, the Belén Educa Foundation has a long history in education, especially in initiatives that seek to improve the quality of life of young people and their families. This institution was one of the winners of the Strengthening of Educational Initiatives (FIE) 2021, a fund with which it will implement a project that will benefit three of its technical-professional schools.

The FIE 2021 is a competitive fund of the Luksic Foundation whose objective is to promote access to higher education for students in secondary technical-professional education. In its first national call, the FIE will support 48 professional technical schools in Chile, among which it will distribute $500 million chilean pesos to finance these projects.

Positively impacting the learning of its students, improving the life opportunities of young people and encouraging the commitment of families to education are part of the essence of Belén Educa. The FIE 2021 will allow them to promote comprehensive education, socio-emotional development and vocational guidance, strategic pillars within their educational project, aligned with the purpose of the Luksic Foundation.

In recent years, Belén Educa has developed specific programs to strengthen the continuity of studies of young people who graduate from IV° Medio. For the institution, access to higher education is as important as permanence and subsequent graduation.

Effective accompaniment and vocational guidance, the pillars of “Tutors Belén Educa”.

The “Tutors Belén Educa” project will benefit with more than $23 million chilean pesos to the schools Juan Luis Undurraga, in the municipality of Quilicura; Archbishop Manuel Vicuña, in San Joaquín; and San Alberto Hurtado, in Pudahuel.

María Priscila Velasco, in charge of continuing studies at the Undurraga School in Quilicura, says that with this project the organization wants to “increase the percentage of young people who break the cycle of poverty, and one of the most effective ways of achieving this is through higher education”.

Through the testimony of former students who will participate as mentors, training for teaching teams and various talks of interest to students and parents, the initiative seeks to develop a comprehensive vocational guidance program that will enable school communities to have access to more and better opportunities.

Velasco explains that “the continuity of studies is one of the fundamental actions of our educational project, we follow up on up to five previous generations of former students because we not only want them to enter, but also to graduate. It is important for us to know their expectations, as well as the reasons why they continue or why they drop out of higher education, in order to improve from year to year”.

The purpose of the ex students mentorships is to share concrete experiences about staying in higher education, the day-to-day challenges and to motivate young people to make decisions that will improve their future. Velasco mentions that having an external foundation support them in this initiative generates more impact within the schools. “FIE 2021 gives many opportunities to our educational communities and we hope to make the most of it to leave installed capabilities in the coming years,” he said.