For School the World, access to quality education has never been a privilege, it’s a right, no matter where a child is born. In rural communities across Central America, their approach goes beyond classrooms. It brings students, families, teachers, and entire communities into the process, to learn, grow, and thrive together.
The School the World team recently shared how their work has evolved over the past year, what’s ahead, and how being named a 2024 .ORG Impact Awards finalist has contributed to their continued momentum.
How has your strategy and approach evolved over the past year?
This past year has been one of the most transformative in our history. We’ve gained momentum through both expanding our current programming and laying the groundwork for our future. With the support of a major new funding partner, we’re reaching more communities than ever. We also finalized our 2025-2030 strategic roadmap, which includes expansion into two new countries and more innovative ways to connect with families.
What energizes our team most is the pace of progress. We’re on track to achieve in the next five years what took us our first fifteen. That kind of growth speaks to our deepening understanding of what communities need and how we can respond in a way that is lasting and community-driven.
What accomplishments from the past year stand out most?
We’re absolutely thrilled about two recent recognitions that validate our approach. For the second consecutive year, our small group tutoring program earned a place in the HundrED.org 100 Collection. We were also named a Successful Practices Honoree by the Library of Congress Literacy Awards, which specifically celebrated our community engagement model.
These honors aren’t just accolades. They represent important milestones in our journey toward sustainable, community-driven educational systems that flourish long after our direct involvement ends. They affirm our belief in working alongside communities and inspire us to keep refining and sharing our model with regions that can benefit from this collaborative framework.
How does impact show up in your communities beyond academics?
Our approach involves deep stakeholder engagement—not just with students, parents, and teachers, but also with local governments and ministries of education. The impact of a strategy like ours goes far beyond what happens in the classroom.
We see the empowerment of mothers through our parent training, and we see communities organizing around schools in ways that lead to development driven from within. One school director shared that, after watching how our service groups interacted with the children, teachers began to see that there are other ways of teaching and learning.
While classroom learning is critical, it’s the community-centered intervention that amplifies our impact – and that’s something our supporters value most.
What insights from 2024 are helping shape your future direction?
In 2024, for our strategic planning process, we engaged stakeholders at every level – staff, students, parents, community leaders, mayors, ministry of education officials, donors, and Board members. Across the board, people expressed a desire for School the World to grow, both within our current countries and beyond.
Many highlighted our holistic model, broad engagement, and strong local teams as key strengths. That feedback helped shape our plan to double our impact over the next five years, including expansion to new regions where this kind of model is urgently needed.
What’s next for School the World?
We’re excited to launch MoonshotSOAR 2030 – How Great Futures Take Flight, our strategic vision for the next five years. It represents a bold new chapter in our mission to bring quality, community-driven education to more children and families.
We’re also preparing to announce an expansion into a new part of the world. While full details are coming soon, this milestone reflects our continued commitment to reaching the most underserved communities with a model that centers families, educators, and local leadership.
What has being named a .ORG Impact Awards finalist meant for your organization?
Since being recognized as a 2024 finalist, we’ve experienced an exciting ripple effect in our network. One of the most valuable aspects of this experience has been the connection to other organizations doing mission-aligned work.
This represents exactly what makes these awards so valuable beyond the recognition itself. They create a community of like-minded organizations that can amplify each other’s impact across borders.
This finalist status has opened new doors for meaningful connections that could help us expand our educational impact to more communities who need it most. We’re energized by these new possibilities while staying focused on our core mission of bringing quality education to rural communities.
With that vision lighting the path forward, School the World is doubling down on what makes their model thrive: listening first, partnering deeply, and building with communities every step of the way. Their next chapter is bold, but deeply rooted in trust and the belief that lasting educational change starts from the ground up.
This piece was a collaborative contribution from Kate Curran and Beatriz Zamora.
Learn more about School the World at www.schooltheworld.org.