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Proud to present you the Costa Rican culture! Did you see the performance of the folklore dance troupe at the Independence Day celebration in Brasilito on September 17th? ACCAI offers multiple opportunities designed to stimulate the potential and creative capacity of our adolescents and in this case also other members of our community. Now our folk dance group rehearses twice a week in our facilities to bring the beautiful dances to different activities! This program is possible thanks to our alliance with The Garden of Artists. This is so important to all of us because it provides preservation of our cultural heritage in addition to physical exercise, personality development, teamwork and the lesson of artistic expression for the members in our community. In addition, the dances are graceful and beautiful!! We will keep you posted when their next performance! Now we are in Villareal! We are thrilled to announce that we are now in Villareal! Thanks to the passion and love of Dione, one of our volunteers, after a few meetings and some planning we managed to bring our English as a Second Language program to Villareal. We are deeply grateful to Dione and his friends who generously donated the books and materials to start with the classes on Saturday the 7th. Thank you Calvary Chapel for allowing the use of your building. What a success this has been! Just on their second session on Saturday the 21st they had 17 students! Dione expresses he enjoys teaching English to the kids in Villareal and that they are very enthusiastic and highly energetic to learn. It was surprising to him that students were not shy at all! We are deeply thankful to John and Helen Lopez, Sam Ray, Su and of course Dione that volunteered to help make this a reality! They all decided to help our community so this worked out perfectly for them. They look forward to every session! ACCAI's goal is to eventually be able to hire a math tutor for these kids of Villareal and little by little implement the program to match that of Brasilito. That is why we need all the support we can get. If you would like to donate for this cause please click on the following button. Math is a struggle for many of us! Here at ACCAI we realized a need for more help than we were already offering. We decided to hire an additional math tutor to come and provide further help to those students who needed a little extra support with the subject. Graciela comes to our location in Brasilito from 5:00-7:00 pm every Tuesday to work with the kids one-on-one. This service is especially for the students who are failing or in dire need of assistance. All of the ACCAI students continue to receive the regular math class on Saturdays with our super profe Federico, and have the option to work with tutors (Math, Physics & English) during their scheduled Pickleball training as well. Students are gaining confidence and skills with this additional service. We would like to share a success story of one of our students who has always agonized with arithmetic. However, in her last exam she scored a 90%! Her Mother wrote us a nice note to show her appreciation: "It's the first time I've seen my daughter's math exam with such an excellent grade. Thank you so much!" Great Job teacher Federico y Graciela! Henrietta the musical!! What a great evening our students had! On Friday, September 1st, we had the opportunity to attend the Henrietta Musical Theater production, a work of cultural interest carried out at the Coopeguanacaste Convention Center in Santa Cruz. A spectacular Broadway-style musical theater production with which in a beautiful way they managed to recreate important historical processes of Costa Rica such as its formation as a new Republic, with a first class cast. The kids who attended really enjoyed this opportunity. For many of them it was the first time attending a play. Thanks to sponsors who, with their valuable contribution, managed to bring such an important production to Guanacaste. We especially thank the Teatro Espressivo for the invitation and the great opportunity they gave our students to participate and enjoy art through theater and music. Hopefully it won't be the last time! Also we would like to express our gratitude to those who have supported us because with your generosity we were able to provide transportation and dinner to all of our student at the Convention Center. Your support is so important to us! The passion of ACCAI Our focus may be the youth of Brasilito but we believe a healthy community is much more than that. This is why ACCAI partners with organizations like Rancho Costafalo and Mission Activation to bring needed services to our community. Through collaboration with Rancho Costafalo, ACCAI hosted our first health fair on Wednesday, August 23rd. 18 people from the community were attended by doctors from Mission Activation. This event wouldn't have been possible without the support and collaboration of Rancho Costafalo and Mission Activation. Thanks to all these people for their contribution in the effort to bring needed medical care to our community! Hotel English 10 week curriculum ACCAI now is offering a 10 week hotel English course as a mean of obtaining funds for our organization. We just successfully finished our first group with 360 Splendor del Pacifico. We feel very grateful to the administration personal for giving us the opportunity to bring this training to their staff and also helping us get funds to continue with our mission. The students show their appreciation to the opportunity given to them, for some it was their first English class ever and that made it challenging but they never stop showing their interest and effort to improve themselves. If you want more information about this program, do not hesitate to contact us and we will be happy to assist you. Last but not least! ... BINGO! Did you know you can create meaningful opportunities for the youth in our community while enjoying a fun night out with friends!? ACCAI, together with some of our local business, friends and sponsors, regularly hosts a fund raising BINGO game! Play bingo, win prizes, play the raffle! All while giving back to the youth in our community. Subscribe to our Facebook page and watch for the details of our next fun event! We are very excited and grateful, because our second bingo fundraiser was a success. We want to especially thank all the people who collaborated through their donations of prizes for the raffles and silent auction, and all those who came to collaborate. Thanks to you, ACCAI can continue and greatly benefit the youth of our community, who need us so much. Additionally, with your help we can continue to provide: Tutorials in mathematics & Physics, English as a Second Language, Pickle ball, Mentoring & Art. Our motto is “Young people studying and not on the streets” We are deeply grateful to all of you who helped made this possible and continue with your support to us! Rachel Harvey Pan de Azúcar The Shack Punto Designer's Spot Roxana Obando Kneaded Massage & Yoga Canatico Pizzeria Bar and Grill Panache Sailing Deli café Angus orgánico Hazel's Steak & Seafood Angelina's Restaurant & Bar Thank you Kathie Roberts y @Jeff Goode for helping organize and call the Bingo! Sincerely, Erika & Karen

Conscious Community Association and Integral Attention On Saturday, June 17th we had the priviledge of bringing a bit of fun to the senior citizens. This activity was made possible thanks to the joint work of ACCAI and ADI (Asociacion de Desarrollo Integral de Brasilito). Our goal was to create a safe space where our elders would have time to socialize and have fun at the same time at no cost at all. There were games, prizes, food and dancing! We would like to thank all relatives of the participants and those who helped to make this possible. A big thank you to Deli Cafe cafeteria and Patagonia Del Mar restaurant for the delicious refreshments, thanks to them our golden citizens enjoyed an exquisite coffee and pastries. #we together are a conscious community! On Saturday, June 24th our teens had a space where they expressed artistically their thoughts of ACCAI and what this program means to them. We then exhibit all drawings and they decided which one they like the best and the winner got a delicious milkshake, which thanks to Deli Cafe we get to give out every Saturday! ACCAI is an initiative designed to stimulate the potential and creative capacity of adolescents through artistic expression, access to education, and the practice of physical and sports activities aimed at personality development, teamwork and health care. Support and/or reinsertion of young people in the formal education system is encouraged, opportunities for guidance and mentoring are created, and tools are offered for future job placement. This accompaniment is complemented by material assistance to support the activities of adolescents, which contributes to the development of their autonomy. Encouragement of participation and support of activities. Guidance and individual and group accompaniment. Support for sustaining formal schooling. Accompaniment to the development of autonomy Guidance and support in comprehensive health care Promotion of healthy habits Attention to different situations of violation of rights. It's very important for us to be aware of the feelings and emotions our teens are going through in our program and for us to leave a mark in their lives. That is our goal, to make a change, to offer a safe and pleasant space for the youth. Below is an image of Nerling who made this beautiful drawing! Thanks to our volunteers hard work and excellent coaching our teens are receiving pickleball practice every Saturday, and they are getting really good at it! We cannot thank Kathie Roberts enough and her team of volunteers for leading this space so important for our youth and that they appreciate so much. Also from behalf of the pickleball team, our kids have received tennis shoes for their practices. Their faces of happiness and gratitude were priceless! We feel so fortunate to have members of our community and visitors with such a good heart that wishes to support our youth. A big thank you to the pickleball team! And so we came to a two-week break from school. As part of our farewell, on Friday, June 30th we prepared a movie night for our teens. Together we laughed and enjoyed the movie "School of Rock", while eating popcorn with some drinks and cookies. Thank you Perry Carlile for donating and preparing the pop corn. July 1st. Beach Party time! We ended this first phase of our program with tons of fun at the beach. Our teens played volleyball, had some boogie boarding fun, played other games, had ice cream, drinks, fruit, big bag of candies and lunch and most importantly they all connected with each other.! As always we wish to thank our volunteers, Dione Prior, Kristin, Ej, Kathie, Federico, Chelsey, Dra. Navarro, Chuck, Ruth, Meisel, and other parents who are always so supportive to us. On Saturday, July 22nd we had our first Bingo game benefiting ACCAI. It was held at Perla's and was filled with fun, winners and most importantly people with great hearts. Thanks to the Pickleball team, Kathie Roberts and John Moore for helping us make this possible, Angelina's Restaurant, Amigos Tacos & Beer, Canatico Pizzeria Bar & Grill, to Jeff Goode for being our Bingo Host and Kristin Coffey for your great support. We would also like to thank all of the people who attended and collaborated one way or another, we managed to raise $1107!! Our English Hotel Vocabulary 10 week course One of the ways to encourage relationships between members of an organization is through courses or training. The trainings allow the employees of the different departments and sectors of the companies to get to know each other and frequent each other in learning moments. It is also an excellent opportunity to bring employees closer to employers. These two factors improve the work environment, generate stronger relationships between members of the company, and create a lasting feeling of belonging to the company. We believe that employees with more skills. are happier and more proactive. We just started a 10 week English Hotel Vocabulary course thanks to 360 Splendor Del Pacifico Residences that care so much for their employees and their personal growth that are bringing this course so they obtain/or improve English skills to provide better care to their guests and communicate better. Thanks to all our sponsors and volunteers. ADI Brasilito La Marina Foundation Deli Cafe 360 Splendor Del Pacifico Residences Angelina's Restaurant Amigos Tacos & Beer Canatico Pizzeria Bar & Grill Pura Vida French Touch Rancho Costafalo Joe and Jeanne Gillen Laboratorio Clinico Navarro y Alpizar Flamingo Chuck and Kathie Roberts John Moore Jeff Goode Ron Kirchhoff Dione Prior Perry Carlile Andrea and Russel King Chelsey Santry Ruth Meisel Rebeca Kattia Mo Federico Robledo Ej Avey Tammy Walker Kristin Coffey Sincerely Erika & Karen

On September 5th, 2012, a magnitude 7.6 earthquake affected 90 educational centers in Guanacaste, including the Brasilito School. By then over 200 children were left without an appropriate Educational Center to receive lessons. 10 years later the community was still waiting for the intervention of the Ministry of Public Education (MEP). Many parents chose to enroll their children in schools in nearby communities but for others this was not an option, either due to transportation costs or because there was no more spaces available in other educational centers. A mother tells us her story so that we can understand a little better what these families experienced: "It was a very big event and the school was very affected by the earthquake. The children then were in tents receiving classes outdoors. They tore down the old structure of the school and the kindergarten classroom. A group of parents from the community saw the need for the children to at least be in a protected area with walls and a roof and failed a complaint with the Ministry of Health and as a result they were given permission to use the Community Salon, which had not yet been finished. With the help of a private investor they were able to finish the place so that the children would have a space to receive their lessons, provisionally, in theory, while the new school was being built. In 2015 the children were already in the Community Salon and no action was seen on the part of the MEP. The community organized a manifestation by blocking the streets. Nothing happened." She continues telling us her story: "My son was in first grade and after the earthquake he kept asking me when was he going to be back at school? School never came back for him. He graduated from 6th grade without his school. Although it is true, the Community Salon was a better space to receive the classes, it was not an ideal place due to the noise of the vehicles. It is a very open area without walls and there were many groups receiving lessons at the same time. There was a lot of distractions. The children had a hard time concentrating and the teachers were hoarse from screaming. Time passed and in 2020 the pandemic came. This was the worst thing that could happen to us. There were no classes anymore. The school handed out printed guides for students to submit. Many kids didn't even do them. There were a lot of families with no internet access or mobile devices that would allow them to connect to the online classes. All of 2020 was very complicated for my family because I had two children in the educational system and only one cell phone with a prepaid package, which was used up very quickly, sometimes my balance ran out in the middle of a class. I also had to choose which of the two of my children I would let receive the class because both of them had to connect at the same time. My daughter, who needs special support, found it very difficult to receive online classes, especially with math. At least in my house, we had access to internet, but I always thought of the other families that did not have a cell phone and those children without knowing how to read or write and already in higher grades. It was a very big setback. My daughter graduated from primary school not knowing what it was like to have a classroom. She experienced what it was like to be in a formal Educational Center until she entered high school.” This is only the story of one parent, just as her many others had different family scenarios and struggles throughout this whole time that were really complex. The result of this is children with poor academic backgrounds and now they are having difficulty in many matters, specially Math, Reading and English or already quit school. The scenario is better since they reopened the primary school this year but there is a lot of work to do with those kids that are still academically behind. This is the reason why we decided to bring ACCAI to Brasilito. Every Saturday 8 am to 1:30 pm we are bringing Math, Physics and English tutors, mentoring workshops and with the help of volunteers the youth receive pickleball for over one hour. Snacks and lunch are provided every Saturday as well with the help of many volunteers that kindly donate the food to us. We have been running the program for 10 weeks now and we can see how the adolescents are developing bonding with positive peers that is so important to their psychological health development and their social life. We provide an open and frequent communication space with respect, feelings of warmth, caring and closeness, availability of supportive guidance, and responsiveness from all the people involved in this program. As we keep saying, our goal is to keep the youth at risk from Brasilito in the classrooms and not on the streets, have them engaged in our program with dynamic activities and that they finish the school year successfully. We are currently looking for sponsors who would be willing to help us reach this goal and continue with our mission. Sponsors are very important for our community enrichment opportunity to continue. Please consider donating to ACCAI. Thank you in advance for considering joining us in this great mission to help our youth have a better future! We can work together to make a difference. Because we are a community that cares! Sincerely, Karen & Erika

Our Youth Group meets every Saturday in Brasilito at 8 in the morning until 1:30 in the afternoon. What a beautiful day it was this past Saturday, May 13th, our 5th meeting! We have 23 students in our program from 7th grade to 12th grade. As of this past Saturday our Youth have received 9.5 hours of Math, 11 hours of English, 6 hours of pickleball, and 2 hours of Mentoring. Plus their snacks and lunches every time we meet. This week our participants got to work on their work books in English class and they had so much fun with the dynamic class our teachers had prepared for them. On our Math class we had the help from some of Cria's National Honor Society Students tutoring our participants...how neat is that? Youth helping youth! Just beautiful! We have small tutoring groups to offer one to one attention in order to achieve a better understanding of the matter in question. Participants bring their school books and get tutored in what they struggle with. We at Accai believe that being young is a synonym of change, progress and future, if the opportunity is given. Our High School Youth, especially Brasilito's are facing challenges...sometimes too heavy for them...and it's our mission to create or recreate a space for future full development and help them learn that we can turn problems into opportunities and solutions. Empowering them to develop the skills to become the driving force of our families and society. To help achieve this goal we had a visit from Doctor Valeria, from 917 Medical Clinic in Flamingo and she shared about the importance of the choices we make and about health matters such as caring for your mind, body and soul, among other interesting subjects. Thanks to the teamwork made by Accai and 917 Clinic we will be having health workshops for the Youth twice a month. We are thrill to announce the alliance made between Elevate Dance Studio and Accai and now our Youth receive 2 hours of dance classes every Tuesday 6 to 8 in the evening. We have 10 to 13 students attending the dance lessons. And last but not least, Pickleball. Students love pickleball on Saturdays and they receive their class for 75 minutes. Thank you so much to the group of volunteers. The students enjoyed it so much they asked if they could play more so this is how Brasilito's park looks now on Friday afternoon 5 to 6:30! Thanks for your support: 917 Medical Clinic, Elevate Dance Studio, Cria's National Honor Society Students Gunner Kith, Brian Mcdonald, Anina Cubillos and Santiago Cubillos and of course to all of our volunteers. Thanks for providing meals: EJ Avey, Federico Robledo and 917 Medical Clinic.. High-Dosage tutoring is effective but expensive. That is why our sponsors are very important for our community enrichment opportunity to continue. Please consider donating to Accai. We also need volunteers helping in Math and in providing snacks and lunch. Thank you in advance for considering joining us in this great mission to help our Youth have a better future! Please don't hesitate to contact us for more information. Pura Vida! Erika & Karen Directors

After many months of planning we finally saw our dream become a reality...that the Youth of Brasilito would have a secure and fun place to meet, where they would receive tutoring in the subjects that they struggle the most but also meet other teens and have fun together. One by one they started arriving at 8 in the morning on Saturday April 15, 2023. Their faces..., you could tell some of them were really nervous and shy, while others immediately started connecting with each other. We started with English support since they are soon to have the exams at their school. They brought their books so the volunteers could work with them. After English came pickleball. We walked to the nearby park where these group of volunteers had 5 nets placed and ready for them. Some of the teens were nervous and expressed they didn't want to play because they didn't know how to and they were too embarrassed. We encouraged them to give it a try, and they all did and had the greatest time ever. They were all playing with a smile on their faces. People who didn't know each other that well were working together, were laughing together and I could tell through all the fun and laughter they were connecting. They had such a great time that they decided they wanted an extra day of pickleball on Friday evenings after school! We came back to the building after pickleball to have fruit and then move on to support on math, but before that we handed out scientific calculators that were donated to us from one of our volunteers and the teens were really happy and surprised. I heard some comments like "Now I don't have to be asking classmates to lend me their calculators in class", another comment I heard was "wow these are very expensive". Several of them didn't have one when they really need it at school. We closed the morning sharing pizza with the Youth. What a morning! They all went home happy and willing to come back next Saturday for more! These memories bond the group together, developing more of a sense of community and a shared history. All of this wouldn't have been possible without the following group of people who believed in this project. Thank you all for your interest in helping with Accai's Youth Program. Thank you to our volunteers that have been there since before we even started! EJ Avey, Tammy Walker, Yakira Mandy Lee, Federico Robledo and Kathy Roberts. You are helping us raise awareness about the need the High schoolers of Brasilito have and that is very important to the community. Your contribution makes it possible to continue making strides towards our goal of having everyone in the program successfully end their school year!. Thank you to our sponsors: Marina Foundation, The Palms, Catalina Cove. Ron Kirchhoff, Jeanne and Joe Gillen, Kristin S. Cox. Your contribution is vital to continue our important work. We cannot succeed without the generosity of supporters like you. Marco Cruz, Ronny Perry,Yakira Mandy Lee, Tiffany and Devon Smith, Frank and Marilyn Webb, Cindy Kokesh, Perry Carlile, Babe Hopkins and the ADI of Brasilito, thank you for your time donated, for donating materials to fix the building, for bringing us supplies for our classes and for helping us with the yummy snacks and lunches for the group. We truly appreciate your interest in helping our organization thrive. You can rest assured that your generous donation is being put to good use. Thank you Asociacion de Desarrollo Integral de Brasilito A.D.I. for providing a secure space for our Youth to receive the program. Cepia for always caring for our children's and youth's educational, mental and physical health in order to have them improve their quality of life. To all the parents, and specially the moms, for helping us get the place ready and encourage your kids to come to our program, we know how hard it is and appreciate all your effort and hard work, thank you! Thank you all for your kindness and support. It's the generosity of people like you that allow us to carry out our mission in the community. We hope to continue making a difference with your help. Thank you for your generosity. We hope to hear from you soon! Until next time With deep gratitude, Erika and Karen