Superlearner OdV is a young and developing volunteer association. The project started in 2017 and is now recognized as a voluntary organization (OdV: Organizzazione di Volontariato) in Italy and Peru. The association has five permanent members comprising the board of directors, almost fifteen permanent members working in the field in Lima or supporting us from abroad and more than twenty short-term volunteers based online and on the ground. We cooperate with other Italian and local Peruvian organizations and entities, as well as over fifty extraordinary children and families who attend our programs every week.

What We Believe

We believe in working with children to make their dreams come true. We believe all children should have the opportunity to grow into whatever they want to be. Our goal is to show them that this is possible.

To do this we embrace a pro-active attitude where our goal is to promote collaboration and enhance children’s empowerment and sense of self-worth by providing comprehensive education for children and their families to encourage change and solidarity in their daily lives.

Our Mission

At Superlearner, we don’t just want to bring meaningful education to some of Peru’s most vulnerable children. We want to empower them to build resilience by giving them the confidence that true education provides. We don’t want to simply “help” communities with short-term projects. We want to collaborate with them to build a long-term, self-sustaining program that fits the community’s needs and continues to benefit local areas long after our volunteers leave. To achieve this goal, we need to learn from each other and train local teachers and community leaders who can keep Superlearner’s programs in place. We are currently putting together an excellent team to make our pilot project effective, efficient and successful. Every volunteer can make a personal contribution according to their abilities, skills and availability, becoming part of a large community.

 A letter from Jorge:

As the founder of Superlearner, this program is so close to my heart because I was one of those kids. We hear about poverty all the time in the abstract, but it’s the everyday aspects of being poor that drag you down. It’s very hard to feel hopeful and confident when the walls of your “house” are a plastic tarp that whips around in the wind, when you don’t always have shoes, when you don’t have money for school books, much less food, and it wouldn’t matter anyway because you attend a school where 75% of your classmates don’t understand what they read. It’s very hard to feel that you can rise above your circumstances when everything around you seems to say that you are unworthy, that you are not smart enough, and that you will never amount to anything.

I know these feelings intimately, and I also know how you overcome them. I was lucky enough to meet kind, big-hearted people like Rosina and Oscar, Erik, Ruben and Clint and Lacey, who encouraged me to learn English, who pushed me to take the college entrance exams even though I was convinced I would never pass them, who gave me the job at the polymetalic mine that helped me save money for college, and who even gave me the money I needed to stay in college after my savings ran out. I am forever indebted to this kindness because these people never let me doubt myself. They never let me believe that I couldn’t succeed.

I was one of the lucky ones, but it’s not enough to just be lucky. Every kid growing up like I did deserves the same opportunity to make the most of their talents and intelligence. This begins with knowing that you are talented and intelligent, that you are worthy, that you can succeed despite all the signs around you saying that you can’t. That kind of empowerment makes people unstoppable. It allows them to rise above their circumstances and build something better. And this is what Superlearner is all about.

Yours,

Jorge Sanchez Rodriguez