More than 20 communities throughout Nicaragua, where the ConnectED journey began, have improved education outcomes because of the ConnectED Fellows Model. Our experience listening to the needs of communities and co-designing education initiatives in Nicaragua allowed us to refine our Fellows Model. We are now embarking on replication and scaling to support local education leaders throughout Central America, starting with Guatemala. Since 2020, we have supported 35 Fellows to improve local leadership and education outcomes for youth from more than 50 rural communities throughout Guatemala.

Partnerships and collaboration make this work possible! Targeting the right communities and education leaders (Fellows) determines the success of a project. Utilizing a specific set of selection criteria, ConnectED works closely with partners to identify and determine if potential communities are a good fit for its programming. To-date, the majority of the communities that we have partnered with have contributed more than 50% of the total project cost from local resources including volunteer time, local trade, and materials. This is significant because it means projects are locally supported and sustained, allowing impacts to be cumulative year after year.