The Hilamas Community Center is located in a neighborhood in Leon called Leon 2. It also serves other populations from the nearby neighborhoods of La Joya, La Barranca, Miravalle, Hilamas, Valle Antigua, Satelite, Paseos de la Cima, among others. These areas are characterized for having security problems with high levels of addictions, domestic violence, and vandalism. Most of the families in these neighborhoods have medium-low to low yearly incomes.
All the activities that take place at the Hilamas Community Center are designed to meet the basic needs of the families in our neighborhoods. These activities are the foundation upon which the work of Fundacion Leon is built. Fundacion Leon believes that by teaching, promoting and implementing positive values in our families, there will come a general understanding that society will change only by promoting and implementing these values in our daily lives, and not just with individuals and families, but also at the community and society level.
It is for this reason that all of our courses, workshops, classes, and training sessions are designed to achieve this goal, and that each class of soccer, yoga, jazz, painting, French pasta-making, computer science, fashion and beauty, sewing, baking, just to mention a few, have this vision in mind.
The work of the Fundacion Leon in the community is much needed, and up to date. The classes, workshops, and courses provided are the means we offer to our beneficiaries to enhance their existing qualities and help them with future personal growth. These classes and training sessions respond to a detected need in our surroundings and Fundacion Leon, aware of this, provides the means for personal, family, and community growth in the neighborhoods surrounding our Community Centers.
The center also has summer courses where during 5 weeks, 100 children also receive meals every day. It is a long-term project that includes walking tours of the city every Friday so they become familiar with the City of Leon and its places of interest.
Results
Fundacion Leon's Hilamas Community Center has positioned itself as a center that provides ample opportunities for growth and development for the society in general.
We are continually recruiting more families for our programs, we design and implement new strategies to attract them, we are constantly aware of existing needs of our neighborhoods and we find ways to deal with them, joining forces with other groups if needed, trying to do the best for each individual we reach. Our reward is the is found in the happy faces of the people we help, in those children, adolescents, and adults that take advantage of our services.
Our task is difficult and constant, that is the reason that we join forces with our generous benefactors that donate time and money to collaborate in this noble endeavor in favor of the most needy of our society.
Since we keep track of our participants, we've seen that every day we reach more people in our workshops and classes, with an increasing participation from all the family members. All this fills us with pride and gives us the motivation to keep working towards improving our community here in Leon.
Social impact
- 18,000 families and 54,000 people have been benefited since the opening of Fundacion Leon
- Successful fundraising campaigns
- Volunteer workers from the high school and university of the Instituto Tecnologico de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey-Campus Leon, the Universidad de Leon, the Universidad Iberoamericana Leon, the Universidad De La Salle Bajio, the high school CECITEG, and the high school Nuevo Continente
- Support from the INAEBA (Instituto de Alfabetizacion y Educacion Basica para Adultos) and AMSIF (Asociacion Mexicana para la Superacion Integral de la Familia)
Please read the testimonies of our residents who have benefited from the services of Fundacion Leon
Thank you a lot for giving us the opportunity to learn new things and for helping us to see our own individual qualities. Thank you because as people you showed us that anything is possible and that there is no bigger impediment than the limits we put on ourselves.
The spaces provided for the courses are adequate and the teachers are experts in their subject matters, and if we do not know how to do something, they explain to us how to do it.
I take with me a very beautiful experience, of meeting new people, and putting into practice in my job and with my family all the things I learned.
Thank you for all you taught us!
Jose Luis Saavedra
First of all I want to thank you for the help you gave us, the teachers, the staff of Fundacion Leon who were the ones that taught us topstitching, for lending us the machines and giving us the material and support.
The talks they gave on Mondays helped me to answer my questions and the workshop allowed me to teach myself how to work to be a responsible person with solid values.
All was very good, and just for me, it seemed the workshop was very short but it was a very fine course. That is why I thank everybody, all the people that helped me and my co-workers. Thank you!
Alejandro de Jesus Lopez
I, Sandra Gabriela, give thanks to all the institutions who collaborated on this project, which helped me to acquire abilities and crafts that I didn't have before, and also for preparing me to help my family by having more options for work in the future. What I acquired was very helpful and I learned it well, still I have to perfect it but with practice I will do it better and I will take with me the knowledge of how this can be done. Thank you very much for everything.
Sandra Gabriela