Education
We believe that a comprehensive strategy to promote wellness in any community must also target the social determinants of health. To this end, we run a full range of educational programs for youth ages 3-18 and their families.
For general questions or inquiries about Puentes de Salud’s youth education programming, please contact Education Director Renny Perla, at renny.perla@puentesdesalud.org.
Youth Education
Puentes de Salud Education programs foster multilingual, intergenerational teaching and learning spaces that nurture creativity, exploration, and cultural connection and support youth and families to recognize and exercise their power in the world.
Our youth education programs span:
- Early Childhood
- Elementary & Middle School
- High School
Education Programming Examples
Puentes a las Artes
(Bridges to the Arts)
We developed this program in partnership with the Barnes Foundation and with support from the William Penn Foundation’s Informal Learning Initiative. Through this program, we work with emergent bilingual learners ages 3-5 and their caregivers and use art to grow children’s early literacy skills in Spanish and English. After-school virtual program sessions include interactive read alouds, art observation, and art making that all foster conversation and shared creative exploration. This program also includes occasional weekend in-person family art and literacy workshops for program families from the larger South Philadelphia Latinx community.
Contact: Nora Litz, nora.litz@puentesdesalud.org; Renny Perla, renny.perla@puentesdesalud.org
Puentes Hacia el Futuro Education Programs
(Bridges Towards the Future)
Puentes Hacia el Futuro works with young people in grades 1-8 through a variety of out-of-school time programming that nurtures students’ creativity, personal development, and exploration of their cultural heritage while also providing support for school-based work and learning. This program offers individual homework and academic tutoring, bilingual social justice and sexuality education workshops with collaborator YES! (Your Empowered Sexuality), art opportunities with Fleisher Art Memorial, support for 8th graders applying to high school, family workshops, and more. We are actively working on designing student and parent leadership structures for the coming years to grow the ways that youth and families determine program content and vision and can engage as actual teachers and mentors, themselves. Puentes Hacia el Futuro is a proud partner of Southwark School, one of the first community schools in Philadelphia.
Contact: Education Supervisor Gaby Martinez Hernandez, gabriela.hernandez@puentesdesalud.org.
Pedagogy of Love Blog post 2017Lanzando Liderez Adolescent Program
Lanzando Líderes is our after-school youth program for Latinx high school students. Programming focuses on academic support, mentoring opportunities, and leadership development. Students in this age group work with individual mentors and participate in interactive workshops that are centered on the interests of students, with topics spanning postsecondary readiness, socioemotional life skills, health and wellbeing, and social justice. Since 2017, ten students have graduated from high school and Líderes to pursue next steps in their education and training.
Contact: Adolescent Education Supervisor Maria Arreaga at maria.arreaga@puentesdesalud.org
Summer Literacy Program
The Puentes de Salud Summer Program offers a month of programming for 30, 1-5th grade Latinx youth in South Philadelphia. This program strives to center the voices and perspectives of the young people we work with, recognize and honor the many ways of knowing that exist within their communities, and offer spaces for learning and self exploration. We celebrate our students’ identities as multilingual or emerging multilingual young people and invite students to explore their own language practices with curiosity and playfulness. While our program does have an “Exploring Literacies” focus, we believe that “literacy” extends far beyond learning to read and write in English, and encompasses the many different ways that people come to know, explore and communicate with the world around them. Finally, our program creates intentional space for rest and play.
Contact: Education Supervisor Gaby Martinez Hernandez, gabriela.hernandez@puentesdesalud.org.
Volunteer Opportunities:
Please see our volunteer page for more information about education program volunteer roles and check our Facebook and Instagram pages for updates on active volunteer roles. If you have specific inquiries and/or questions about volunteering with our programs, please contact our volunteer coordinator, Argelia Mejia-Cuba at argelia.mejia-cuba@puentesdesalud.org. We generally recruit new education volunteers in August/September, January, and late spring.
Please check our Facebook and Instagram pages for updates on active volunteer roles. We generally recruit new education volunteers in August/September, January, and late spring.
For general questions or inquiries about Puentes de Salud’s youth education programming, please contact Renny Perla Director, at renny.perla@puentesdesalud.org.