Empowering Foster Girls and Teens in Puerto Rico

When a caring and loving environment is provided to a child in need, adversity is handled more effectively and resilience is possible. The girls at Hogares Teresa Toda has shown great deal of strength during this year amid the challenges presented: earthquakes, pandemic, distanced education along with the other emotional baggage that they are dealing with related to their exposure to traumatic experiences. Hogares Teresa Toda is proud to say that our participants have raised to the occasion and have being able to complete the school year with an excellent academic performance.

During the 2019-2020 academic year, Hogares Teresa Toda served a total of seventeen girls of which fourteen completed their academic year at the facility. The fourteen residents who completed their academic year at the facility passed, seven of them with an overall average of 90% or higher and the other seven with averages of 80% or more. Three girls graduated from the eighth grade and participated in the graduation ceremonies following the security measures adopted in leu of the COVID-19 pandemic. A resident graduated from High School and was accepted to the Universidad del Este, Carolina Campus. This student was admitted to the Social Work program. Another participant was admitted to her school's honor roll.

 Every residents benefited from supervised study and tutoring at the facility Monday through Friday from 4:30 pm to 6:30 pm. In this space the residents completed their assignments, special projects and studied for their exams.

A total of 396 hours of supervised study was offered.

Due to the situation of the pandemic, during this academic year (2019-2020) all residents took their classes online through different social platforms from March 2020 (Teams, Google Classroom, Zoom and WhatsApp) . The facility provided each resident access to the internet, computers, and tablets. The participants were offered computer classes at the facility where basic skills of the WORD, POWER POINT programs, among others, were taught. 

Hogares had the pleasure of celebrating their achievements in an Award Ceremony taking into account all needed COVID-19 measures. 

Along with the educational plan executed to address the pandemic times, the girls continued to have other therapeutic activities like cooking classes, nails workshops and Games activities among others.  

We thank our donors for their support and wish them good health in these times of adversity.  Thank you fo being present in the life of these girls. You are helping us make the difference.