An organization in Georgia is on a mission to lower dropout rates and encourage Latino students to receive a college education and become involved with positive activities in their community.
Hispanic Organization to Promote Education (H.O.P.E.) was founded in 2009 by a pair of young Hispanics, who experienced firsthand the challenges of being a minority during the formative adolescent years.
The high percentage of teens dropping out of high school to pursue a life of drugs, gangs or because of pregnancy led David Araya and Ángela Hurtado to create H.O.P.E. while still in school themselves. In only a matter of days, they had convinced a dozen of their peers to join them.
In the beginning, the organization consisted of meetings featuring motivational speeches and sporting events. They even formed a soccer team.
Eventually, Araya and Hurtado decided to expand their group and began visiting other schools within Gwinnett County, where they both resided, in order to ask permission to open similar branches.
Currently, H.O.P.E. has chapters in 26 schools within 11 school districts, the majority of which are located in the metro Atlanta area. The organization counts more than two thousand students as members, a point of pride for its founders.
“This is a true blessing, we never thought our project would go this far,” explained Araya. “We’ve been contacted by 20 other schools about opening chapters there, and we’re working on that. It’s our greatest wish to influence teens in a positive way.”
H.O.P.E. holds an annual conference attended by more than one thousand high school students. This year’s event took place in the auditorium of Meadowcreek High School, in Norcross.
At these conferences, teens listen to presenters about opportunities in higher education and also meet with representatives from different state universities, as well as they participate in a variety of contests for fun.
H.O.P.E. is not just limited to teens, however. The organization also offers workshops for parents, with the goal of providing insight into the risks adolescents face and teaching parents how to guide their children along the correct path.
The intention, according to Araya, is to teach teens how to best take advantage of their education, become leaders and receive a college degree.
At the time of H.O.P.E.’s inception, Araya, who is of Costa Rican descent, and Hurtado, who traces her roots to Colombia, were classmates both in school and also at a GALEO (Georgia Association of Latino Elected Officials) leadership workshop.
Araya and Hurtado also worked together as volunteers for the Latin American Association (LAA) and were in a relationship when they started H.O.P.E. Today, they are a happily married couple, they assure.
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