Our 2025 Annual Report is here! 2025 was another year of young people learning, leading and creating new opportunities for themselves and their communities at educate.
From scholarships and community libraries to STEM, sport, arts, communications and youth leadership, our work is about much more than simply access to education. While scholarships continue to be core to our model, our work is also about creating spaces where young people can discover what they are capable of, develop their voices and take an active role in shaping their communities.
Our 2025 Annual Report brings together the stories, achievements and lessons from a year of growth – and there is perhaps no better way to understand what educate. is about than through the story of one of our own young leaders: Jessica.
From scholarship student to youth leader
Jessica first came to educate. as a scholarship student. Like many of the young people in our scholarship programme, she came from a rural community where continuing education can involve significant financial and practical barriers. A scholarship opened this door for her, and now she is in her third year of a university degree in Business Administration and Development!
Over time, Jessica became increasingly involved in the wider life of educate. She developed her skills, grew in confidence and took on new responsibilities within the organisation.
Today, Jessica is part of the educate. team and has taken on leadership responsibilities of her own. Her journey captures something at the heart of our approach: young people are not just participants in our programmes, they are the people who lead them.
As Jessica herself reflected: “The organisation has always believed in me as a leader, and has strengthened my leadership skills by placing me in charge of the communications programme. For me, being in charge of this group made me feel fulfilled and capable of achieving whatever I set my mind to!”
That transformation – from having an opportunity to becoming someone who creates opportunities for others – is at the heart of what we mean by youth leadership.
“Comparing who I was three years ago with who I am now, I can see the difference in myself. I am loving the life I have now, and working with young people fills me with an energy I did not know I had.”
A year of learning, exploration and creativity
Jessica’s story is just one example of what happened across educate. in 2025.
Our scholarship programme remained at the heart of our model, supporting 47 young people from low-income rural communities to continue their education at secondary and university level. More than 60% of our scholarship students continued to be girls and young women, and 6 young people became first-generation high school graduates.
Throughout the year, our Youth Center continued to provide a space where young people from rural communities could learn, lead, and grow. More than 100 young people participated in our programmes each week (and over 1,500 more in community events that our programme participants organized!), exploring everything from STEM and visual arts to sport and community journalism.
Our community library network also continued to grow, creating spaces where children and young people in rural schools can access books, creative learning resources and new opportunities to explore their interests. By the end of 2025, our network reached 14 community libraries!
Gender justice, sexual health education and peacebuilding: creating spaces to ask different questions
In 2025, we also continued to create spaces for young people to talk about issues that are often challenging to discuss openly in rural communities.
Through our work on gender justice, sexual and reproductive health, healthy masculinities and peacebuilding, young people have opportunities to explore questions about relationships, gender, power, violence and the expectations placed upon them.
We believe young people need spaces where they can ask questions, exchange experiences and consider possibilities beyond the assumptions that surround them. Our programmes aim to give them the knowledge, confidence and relationships they need to navigate these challenges and imagine different futures.
And once again, young people themselves are central to this work. They are not simply receiving information, but are increasingly becoming the facilitators, leaders and role models creating these spaces for their peers.
Beyond the numbers
An annual report inevitably contains numbers. Numbers help us understand the scale of what we are doing: how many scholarships we provided, how many young people participated in programmes, how many libraries were established, and how many activities took place throughout the year.
But numbers alone cannot capture what these opportunities mean. They cannot show the confidence that develops when a young person who once struggled to speak in front of a group becomes a facilitator. They cannot capture what it means for a young person to be the first person in their family to attend university. They cannot measure the significance of having a space in your community where you can learn, meet other young people and discover new passions.
That is why stories like Jessica’s matter. Her journey reminds us that an opportunity is rarely just an opportunity. When young people are given the chance to learn and lead, they can go on to create opportunities for others, too.
Looking ahead
2025 was a year of significant growth and learning, but it was also a reminder that there is still much more to do. Poverty, inequality and violence persist in our communities, and we remain committed to working alongside children and young people in rural Honduras to create the opportunities they deserve to learn, to lead, to grow, and to shape their futures and those of their communities.
We invite you to read our full 2025 Annual Report to discover more about the people, programmes and partnerships that made the year possible.
As always, thank you to our young people, families, communities, team members, partners, volunteers and supporters who continue to make this work possible!