About Us

The Oaxaca Learning Center is a non-profit organization in Oaxaca, Mexico that offers free tutoring to students between the ages of 14 and upwards.

The students who come to the Center for assistance are usually from small villages throughout the state of Oaxaca. Typically they have few financial resources, often living away from their families for the first time and struggling to adjust to city life. Most often they have come from environments that have not supported good study habits.

The young people come to the Center to get help in mathematics, chemistry, physics, and Spanish. Also on offer are English language classes and tutoring as well as computer literacy, typing, and counseling. For many, the Center has become a home away from home where they always feel welcome, have a place to share experiences with other students, and seek advice from the tutors and staff.

The tutors, many of whom are alumni of the Center, are paid a stipend for their work.

The Oaxaca Learning Center is funded by revenue gained from the bed and breakfast and personal donations. It is centrally located in a building bought by the founder, Gary Titus, in 2004. After massive renovations, it now consists of a classroom, a computer room, two guest rooms and a rooftop apartment that constitute the B&B, office space and living space for Gary.

The staff members are Jaasiel Quero Llaven, the Program Coordinator, Lourdes Perez, part-time accountant, Andres Mecinas Cruz, House Manager and Cook, and Daniel Herrera, house- and garden-keeper.

Gary Titus, the founder of The Oaxaca Learning Center, is non-salaried, acts as overseer and is always available for a chat or advice.

The Center operates year round 7 days per week.

 

"Toll-Free Bridges to the Mainliand" - by Barry Head

I get a rush each time I visit The Learning Center, and I’ll tell you why.

Some years back, like nearly 400 or so, John Donne penned “No man is an island, entire of itself,” and while nowadays we might quibble with his political correctness, we interconnected northerners generally tend to agree with him. I mean, you’re here right now on the Internet, aren’t you?

It’s different, though, in places like Oaxaca, where I live most of the year. If all you’ve got is yourself, if each day brings nothing but another full-time challenge to survive until the next... well, then, you’d better learn to be an island unto yourself, and a tight, little island at that.

Unless you can find a bridge to the mainland.

Here in Mexico, the most promising bridge is Education, but it’s so often beyond the reach of a young person’s resources and abilities. The way I see it, The Learning Center is in the bridge-building business. It’s helping dozens of young, would-be students make their way from isolation to interconnectedness. With life. It offers them both the knowledge and the emotional support they need for their journey. And, what’s more, the bridges The Learning Center builds are toll-free.

A radical concept! But the Center’s many, many success stories prove it can work.

I’ve spent time with several of the Center’s tutors and students, and they’re a proud, happy lot. They’ve developed the self-confidence and firm self-concept they lacked. They’re discovering opportunities where they had none before. They have optimism.

In short, they’ve escaped off their islands. They’ve become, as Donne put it, “a piece of the continent, a part of the main.” Where they go next is, of course, up to them, but they’re on their way to...somewhere.

That’s what gives me a rush when I visit The Learning Center - watching human potential break through the parched earth and flourish.