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The Resplendor International Cultural and Education Center, a new UA-sponsored community development center, recently opened in Guanajuato, Mexico.

By Rebecca Ruiz-McGill, University Communications
June 15, 2009

University of Arizona students and UA associate professor of special education rehabilitation and school psychology Todd Fletcher recently celebrated the opening of a new community development center in Guanajuato, Mexico.

Resplendor International Cultural and Education Center, a new UA-sponsored center, will host literacy, technology and health education training for children and families at the site thanks to the philanthropic activities of current and former education students.

Current and former students attended the Guanajuato opening  along with Fletcher and more than 300 members of the Mexican community near Cajones, the site of the center.

The opening featured music, dancing and activities and community members interested in knowing the services that will be offered at the new facility.

"The community came out to celebrate the grand opening and expressed gratitude at the commitment the UA and our students have given to the project," Fletcher said. 

Fletcher has secured a 12-year lease for the nonprofit center.

Current and former students as well as UA College of Education faculty joined together to raise funds for the Resplandor Center, with the goal of offering literacy, technology and health education. They also plan to build a library and provide mobile teaching classrooms to serve as a resource to remote rural communities.

Their effort to help the Mexican community has evolved over the last 15 years with the initiation of the Summer in Mexico, or Verano en México, travel abroad study opportunity Fletcher created.

Students have been welcomed into the homes of residents of Guanajuato as part of the UA College of Education's Summer in Mexico study abroad program.

Since the inception of the program, hundreds of students preparing for careers in education, English as a second language, social work, speech and language therapy and school psychology have benefitted from the opportunity to study abroad.

Students enrolled in the Verano en México program live with community members for about five weeks and are taught intensive Spanish-language classes. They also observe in Mexican public schools where they teach and work with educators, children, youth and their families for 20 hours each week. They also take regular university classes while there.

Fletcher is exploring grants that will help sustain the project over time. He credits his work and the experiences of students in Verano en México for the Resplandor effort.

"Students who have been to Guanajuato through the Verano en México program are transformed by the experience. They come back as educators who are more empathetic and who have greater cultural context to draw from for students and families who are in the United States outside of their known cultural context," Fletcher said.

Thanks to the efforts of Susan Baker, a graduate student in special education and president of the newly formed Change for Change Club, a part of the Associated Students of the UA, the effort to collect funds to build upon the services offered at the center are underway as well. 

Change for Change is a national organization that supports philanthropic efforts by collecting donations of small change. The UA club contributes its share to make big changes in Guanajuato.

"The UA's Change for Change Club is the first chapter in the West," Baker said.

Donations for the center are being collected in Mexico as well and include an art raffle that will be held June 26.

Donations for the center are tax deductible and o-going. All proceeds will go towards UA student study abroad, research and service scholarships associated with the Resplandor International Cultural and Education Center in Guanajuato.