Empowering the Hispanic faith community around the country.

Over the past 15 years, Esperanza National Programs has served the “least of these” by strengthening local churches, organizations, and individuals that are engaged in serving the Hispanic community. We come alongside church leadership and laity, contributing our skills and resources to help equip and strengthen them, posturing the Hispanic faith community for even greater success.  We also serve as a national intermediary providing sub-grant funds to help Hispanic nonprofits grow.

We do this through a diverse national network of Hispanic clergy, congregations, lay leaders, and nonprofits. Together we strengthen the Hispanic community throughout the United States with a particular focus on youth leadership development. We provide capacity building, mentoring, grassroots and degree level education, faith engagement, housing counseling, we develop relevant resources, and provide other opportunities as they arise. Our current programs include the following:

Esperanza Youth Leadership Initiative (formerly the Barrio Youth Initiative of Esperanza)

EYLI is a collaborative leadership development organization that inspires vision, provides educational opportunities at the grassroots and degree level, and develops resources for those that work with Latino youth and beyond. The initiative is a subsidiary of Esperanza and a partner of Esperanza College of Eastern University. We strengthen the missional capacity of the body of Christ to reach, disciple, and give voice to young people to become agents of transformation in urban communities. Specifically, we provide the following:

• An accredited Associates Degree in Christian Ministry with a concentration in Youth Ministry. These classes can be conveniently taken during the evening and completed in 2 years. The course neatly feeds into almost all Bachelor’s degree programs at Eastern University.
• The Initiative for Leadership is a year-long training for local church youth ministry teams on leadership development. They are provided a mentor will participate in group dialogues as well as out-of-city vision trips.

For more information visit BarrioYouthInitiative.org
For the latest Youth Ministry resources created by the Esperanza Youth Leadership Institute:

Renovación Pastoral (Pastoral Renewal)

Renovacion Pastoral supports new pastors in their first years of service to the Latino communities of Philadelphia, Allentown, Bethlehem, Lancaster, and Reading. We offer these pastors a sacred space to be affirmed, to learn, and to be nurtured through mentoring that is focused on both spiritual and practical matters. Esperanza connects pastors in their first years of ministry with active and retired veteran pastors who have demonstrated longevity and success in local ministry, helping the younger pastors to transition successfully into congregational leadership while building a pastoral legacy for the well-seasoned religious leaders of the Latino communities of Southeastern Pennsylvania. Specifically, we provide the following:

• Pair pastors that have been in ministry 10 or less years with a well-seasoned pastor as a mentor and coach over an 14-month period.
• We provide educational full-day workshops on relevant topics of pastoral well-being such as balance in ministry, financial literacy, accountability and self-care.
• We develop contextualize resources for Latino pastors such as mentoring manuals, spiritual discipline toolkits, devotionals and Bible Engagement resources.
• We help the congregations they serve, through youth leadership development (the Initiative for Leadership mentioned above), and support the development of new youth ministries.
• We coordinate vision trips to other ministries in our region for inspiration and reflection on how to better engage their own context.

For more information visit esperanza.us/renovacion-pastoral.

Ciencia, Fe Y Esperanza (Science, Faith and Hope)

We help the Hispanic faith community embrace the truths of science within the context of the church. This project addresses the resultant loss of Hispanic youth from both the church and STEM fields. Ciencia, Fe Y Esperanza creates a vehicle for faith-based students and science professionals to engage with clergy and their congregants about science as a vocation for people of faith.

Specifically, students and faculty in the STEM fields at Esperanza College of Eastern University, along with faith-based scientists and Hispanic theologians, are doing outreach, education, and dialogue with local clergy and churches. By the end of the project, education and dialogue about science and faith will be piloted throughout the Philadelphia Hispanic faith community, and other markets around the country will be assessed for program replication.

For more information visit http://www.esperanza.us/ciencia-y-fe/ 

Youth Civic Engagement

Our Youth Civic Engagement is a program that actively promotes technology as a tool to broaden programmatic reach and impact within the Latino community. We address the digital divide by exposing Latinos to digital tools, educating on digital literacy to improve the well-being of our community. We do this through leadership development among young people. We identify and recruit students that are interested in civic engagement, politics and voter registration to address barriers and empower them to become advocates regarding some of the most challenging issues in the Latino community such as education, gentrification and voter registration.

Hispanic Clergy of Philadelphia and Vicinity (HCPV)

HCPV is the founding organization of Esperanza. It is led by a Board of Directors who are local Pastors and Ministers with a desire and commitment to minister God’s love, hope, and faith to the Hispanic Community in the Delaware Valley and Vicinity.  The organization’s aim includes assisting and supporting its membership in ministry by stimulating ministerial communication, cooperation and fellowship, providing leadership, training, spiritual, and technical assistance as well as representation before government entities and other institutions both civil and private.

Hispanic Small Ministry Grants Fund (HMSGF)

This fund supports Latino/Hispanic churches and church leadership located in Philadelphia County and funds projects that focus on the development of the church’s leadership (professional and lay), development of the church’s youth ministry (youth ministry team and the ministry thereof), and the church’s ministries of service to the Latino/Hispanic community. Proposals are accepted on a rolling basis and range from $500 – $1000.