In the midst of the panorama recently experienced in Puerto Rico, we must recognize that this last year has been challenging for all the sectors of the island. However, for Boys & Girls Clubs of Puerto Rico, this has not made any difference on our mission. We remain focused and committed to the eradication of child poverty, young people and their families.

 

For us, even after 52 years in Puerto Rico, it wasn’t until seven years ago that we began to understand what it means to live under these conditions and how the work we used to do had to evolve according to the need in order to change that reality. Today, we can share that during the past year, we have consolidated the foundations of our organization and equipped it with the necessary tools for the complex, yet achievable operation to eradicate multigenerational poverty.

 

For example, it has only been a year since the launch of Vimenti by Boys & Girls Clubs of Puerto Rico, this is our first project directly aimed at reducing generational poverty through three programmatic areas: educational, social and economic. During its first year, this four-year demonstration project managed to reduce unemployment for participating families from a 42% to 16%. Although we still have work to do, we have taken the steps to demonstrate that providing economic security to the populations we serve is in fact tangible

 

With the same urgency and strategy, we have been changing the programming of our service centers. A conversation we had at the beginning of 2019 with around twenty college level participants gave us light and direction to lead this process. This helped us understand the needs within our programming in order to bring them and their families, closer to their aspirations. For next year, we are ready to launch our new programmatic strategy. To execute it, we made sure that the participants have a top notch experience, so that they are at the center of our operation.

 

We count on you, because this year we also confirmed that the establishment and maintenance of alliances with various sectors is crucial to the eradication of poverty in order to meet the aspirations of disadvantaged communities. After all, poverty is a cost on all of us, but mainly affects the younger generations of all sectors who need hope a better present and an even better future.