The Future Blossoms for Tijuana’s Youths
Written by Adriana DiBenedetto and Meijuan Su
Published #74 | Fall 2024 Issue
Teachers, staff, and students from Tzu Chi’s Hope Classroom in Tijuana, Mexico, are as focused on academics as they are on becoming global citizens and environmental ambassadors. Photo/Christopher Yang
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Every achievement grows out of the seed of determination.
The Buddhist Tzu Chi Foundation believes in the promise of our youths near and far, and the potential that lives within us all. However, not all children have access to supportive and inclusive learning environments – or ones that promote social mobility. And so, Tzu Chi’s educational mission strives to advance a global humanistic culture that supports equality, compassion, and hope.
Through a range of programs and initiatives, Tzu Chi’s education mission balances developing the mind and opening the heart, emphasizing both academic and emotional intelligence, with a comprehensive curriculum that nurtures spiritual, analytical, physical, social, and creative growth while fostering integrity and responsibility. Also foundational to Tzu Chi’s mission is the need to protect our planet for future generations, thus incorporating green approaches and routines into its curriculum.
Decades ago, Tzu Chi helped advance education in Tijuana with an elementary school. The Foundation’s educational mission locally has continued to evolve over the years, most recently implementing a program for Tijuana’s youths known as the “Classroom of Hope.” Today, it empowers students with the resources to transform communities.
The Origin of Tzu Chi’s Education Mission In Tijuana
Tzu Chi volunteers have been active in Tijuana, Mexico, since the early 1990s, assessing local conditions and ways Tzu Chi might help. Then, in 1995, Tzu Chi volunteer Amoy Manguy encountered a school that gravely needed assistance. Classrooms were fashioned with garage doors and tarpaulins, creating a sometimes precarious situation for students to learn effectively. Many simply didn’t attend.
Many children were wandering around. They didn’t get to go to school.
After investigating needs thoroughly, Tzu Chi started the building process for what would become Escuela Primaria Tijuana Tzu Chi, also known as Tijuana Tzu Chi Elementary School. Steadily, school became a place where youths could truly enjoy their time and studies and develop their innate potential to flourish in brand-new classrooms – with a basketball court and emergency shelter on the way.
As Tzu Chi’s work continued, local parents joined in as well, taking part in nutrition workshops and learning performances that incorporated Sign Language. In 2005, this group of community-minded parent volunteers and faculty even organized a trip to Taiwan to meet Tzu Chi’s founder, Dharma Master Cheng Yen, and solidified plans for further progress, eventually creating one of the most advanced elementary school environments in Latin America.
Escuela Primaria Tijuana Tzu Chi continues to grow, with 900 students from ages 6-12, and four special education teachers. “What impresses us the most in our collaboration with the Tzu Chi Foundation is sharing, being supportive, focusing on ecological care, sharing our traditions, and being able to get close to people who are not your same nationality, but feel them as part of your family,” shared Graciela Sanchez, the school’s Headmaster.
Students actively uphold eco-friendly routines, such as recycling cardboard and plastic, and have taken an interest in environmental protection both in and outside of the classroom. The funds collected from recycling go directly toward school supplies, such as pencils and notebooks.
Since Tzu Chi came here, there were many changes. We started taking care of nature by recycling, keeping our spaces clean, collaborating with the community.
Unified in their support, members of the school strive to carry out the Tzu Chi spirit in their daily lives, passing it along from one person to the next. “I’ve seen children teach their parents to recycle, and even when going about their day, they make an effort to clean up the streets,” said Headmaster Sanchez.
For the last 20 years, the Buddhist Tzu Chi Foundation has provided quality primary education, scholarships, school supplies, and more through the Tijuana Tzu Chi Elementary School in Mexico.
Establishing the Classroom of Hope
Upon entering some of Tijuana’s communities, dust and smoke permeate the air, coating trees, cars, and fences as small fires burn waste items here and there. However, the residents of Tijuana have become accustomed to the smog.
Many homes do not have valid addresses or ready access to clean water or electricity. Although Tijuana’s city government provides free waste collection services, circumstances within and around these communities commonly lead to excess debris, and litter had become a deeply ingrained habit when all efforts seemed futile.
Due to these hardships and more, children without the required documents couldn’t enroll in formal education, facing an uncertain future with few avenues of release from the cycle of poverty present in many disadvantaged and under-resourced neighborhoods.
Determined to act once more, Tzu Chi volunteers in Tijuana collaborated with the National Institute for Adult Education (Instituto Nacional para la Educación de los Adultos or INEA), a division of the Department of Education. However, since INEA primarily focused on adult education and only offered half-day weekend programs, they couldn’t provide sufficient assistance to youths. To bridge this gap, Tzu Chi’s medical campus volunteers took the initiative to hire teachers and establish the Classroom of Hope at Tzu Chi’s Tijuana campus under the INEA educational system.
Officially launched on April 3, 2023, this program welcomes people under 18 and operates five days per week. As a separate initiative from Tijuana Tzu Chi Elementary School, Tzu Chi Tijuana’s regional campus takes care of all of the youths’ essential needs, including free lunches, and offering subsidized bus fares for those who live farther away. Additionally, the campus extends its philanthropic and medical care services to support the children and their families’ physical and mental well-being, ensuring a conducive environment where youths can attend school with peace of mind. Teaching the next generation to have a positive relationship with our planet can also start early. That’s why teachers and staff are teaching students about environmental protection – and to fabulous results, with students and teachers from Tzu Chi’s Classroom of Hope regularly holding community clean-up events.
In the Classroom of Hope, children and teens work hard to catch up on their schoolwork with the help of volunteers who work hand in hand with teachers to arrange and plan Tzu Chi’s humanistic program, allowing students to reach grade level while also learning about kindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity. Every aspect of the program is actively planned to expand horizons, and envision a future that is vast and wide.
Present-Day Problems and Solutions
As buds begin to bloom in Mexico, it is time for annual celebrations to get underway as people welcome the summertime. And so, Escuela Primaria Citlalmina joined hands with Tzu Chi volunteers and students from the Classroom of Hope to participate in a special festival event. Seizing this opportunity, Tzu Chi volunteers seamlessly integrated environmental protection concepts into their event presentation. On March 22, 2024, when Tzu Chi volunteers and students from the Classroom of Hope arrived at Escuela Primaria Citlalmina, it had been decorated with colorful balloons, and the small playground was full of life. Here, students from the Classroom of Hope performed a Sign Language piece titled “One Family” amidst warm music that conveyed Tzu Chi’s spirit of mutual care through sign language and song.
After the performance, the students shared Tzu Chi’s environmental mission with everyone gathered, winning applause and praise from the audience of parents and teachers. Many parents expressed their intention to join the recycling efforts. A parent named Kimberly was particularly pleased with the students’ presentation, saying, “It’s been a very enjoyable experience. We must keep the streets clean.”
A Classroom of Hope teacher named Victor beamed as he looked back on the children’s progress. “The performance went smoothly, and the children loved it,” he said. “We did some recycling work, helping the school collect recyclables. Students also displayed DA.AI Technology items created from recycled materials. This event was so important because it helped raise awareness about taking care of our planet. We also invited parents to join us on May 11 for a community event focused on recycling.”
I'm glad to be here today. I was nervous at first, but we’re doing this to stop people from littering and to promote recycling.
After the spring event ended the students and teachers from the Classroom of Hope and Tzu Chi volunteers immediately started tidying up the area, surprising parents and teachers from Escuela Primaria Citlalmina, who then joined in the efforts, too. Working together, the scene was soon transformed.
As one teacher from Escuela Primaria Citlalmina rushed to help clean up, she asked the Tzu Chi volunteers, “What school are you from? Why do your children seem so different?” The Tzu Chi volunteers promptly introduced her to the Classroom of Hope and warmly invited her to visit the campus. She gave the volunteers an enthusiastic thumbs-up, thanking Tzu Chi for sharing its environmental mission.
We’re all going there so that we can start teaching people to recycle. Many people have burned a lot of things, and the smoke it produces is everywhere. It’s a place where we can cooperate with our community to make a change.
From horizon to horizon, good deeds are relayed onward from person to person, creating a ripple effect within communities. We look forward to seeing this cycle of collaboration and care gradually become even larger.
Tzu Chi has taught us how we can work together, how we can recycle, and how we can reuse materials. Each student benefits from this in the end, and they can teach others by taking it home. Thank you very much. We’re very excited, and we hope to be able to continue.
