Our purpose is to research, devise and allocate available resources to meet the challenge of engaging the emergent era of technological informed digital globally connected diverse learners who no longer benefit from traditional educational settings. We aim to foster alternative learning experiences designed for a diverse pool of learners, equipping educators with creative tools and approaches, and making room to provide assistance to learners with specific and diverse learning needs within inclusive learning environments.
We promote learning as a human innate ability, in cases divergent and unique to each individual as a diverse learner. We believe every learner is able to achieve. We foster the exploration of diverse learning styles and facilitation approaches which enables every learner to achieve mastery.
Our mission is to bring awareness of the diverse learning styles, facilitate alternative learning approaches and create learning experiences that make space for a diverse pool of learners, where education meets the specific learning needs of every divergent learner.
Amarajavadar. The name is composed of three words: Amar Ahava Dar. Ahava is the Hebrew word for love. In Hebrew each character holds a meaning on its own. In the Hebrew word ahava you have the root “hav” which means “to give”, making the act of giving fundamental to love or the act of loving. Adding those two words in Spanish, amar which is to love, and dar which is to give, to the Hebrew word ahava, is how we concocted our organization’s name. We changed the H in ahava for the sound in Spanish which is J and that gives it more our own creative trait on it. This word speaks volume to our heart and life goal and it is a great name for the legacy we aim to establish. We are a group of philanthropists and humanists in this organization trying to give back as much as we love the impact of our labor. Loving the act of giving, or giving as a way to express love, has been a great part of what we have done and wish to continue to do with our organization.
Our story begins back in 2009 with a group of ESL learners struggling in high school. Moved to create a project to lift their spirits and engage them in their own learning from a different perspective, I found purpose and began exploring alternative learning strategies. Through art and apprenticeship the experience became an amazing game changer for their academic experience as well as for my teaching practice. An alternative philosophy to teaching became my very untraditional and eclectic approach. High schoolers enrolled in my class had a chance to explore topics and skills from a variety of designs ranging from literature to cartoon explored through diverse scopes moving from murals and performances to research papers and even movie clips made by them. The rationale behind it was the constant consideration of what lies underneath a learning struggle has more to do with the way we learn than with the task of what we learn.
That idea took a twist when I had to quit teaching to become the facilitator to my High Functioning Autistic child who struggled with traditional learning settings because he learned in a completely different way. Hurricane Maria pushed us to open a nonprofit in 2019 in aims to establish a place for alternative learning. Immersed in how this population learns I began to delve into research for advocacy in alternative approaches to teach High Functioning ASD individuals like my son. Deeply inspired by the sudden and unforeseen struggle we faced as a family when I was diagnosed with Ductal Invasive Carcinoma back in 2021, confronted with the fact we had no replacement for his alternative education and his specific learning needs provided until then by me and the various therapy centers we visited, we came to a rude awakening. And that’s when it really hit home for us. With us he had room for his unique learning potential as a neurodivergent learner amidst the educational field that has not yet caught up with the emergent era of diverse learning needs. Just like us, there are thousands of families experiencing a similar struggle when it comes to ASD and similar issues with specific learning needs of neurodivergent learners. There is just not enough educators nor places ready to provide the necessary adjustments these learners need in order to succeed both in education and when they join the workforce. Education as a whole is faced with a new globally connected and digital era of diversity and major access to information with learners that defy anything prior or traditional about the way they learn.
Our current research project aspires to grant the opportunity to equip educators and professional development practitioners with the tools and approaches aligned to the specific learning needs for this population to thrive in learning and employment environments. Research is key to start matching more available funds to the people like us with real need in educational scenarios. This is our story and one that repeats itself in many other families just like ours.