HISTORY

The institution El Puente de Esperanza I.A.P. originated with the volunteer work of its founder Mrs. Conchita Walker. Conchita, of American parents, was born in Costa Rica, in her childhood she lived in San Salvador. In her youth she lived in the United States of America. She was a member of the first generation of the Peace Corps founded in 1961 by former President John F. Kennedy of the United States. In 1994, when she started El Puente de Esperanza in the city of Queretaro, she and her husband Keith Walker were living in Hoonah, Alaska. Mrs. Walker began providing education, food and housing assistance to underprivileged girls who wanted to attend high school and college and whose circumstances forced them to choose domestic or agricultural work, limiting their aspirations to pursue higher education.

In 1994, Conchita started the Project with the program Posada de Marías to help nine 15 year old girls from Colón, Querétaro to study high school. She provided a house in Santiago de Querétaro where the students lived. The founder and her board of trustees recognized that the young men also needed support, so she rented another house nearby. She opened the program Posada de José, and welcomed seven teenagers from Colón, Qro. to their new home.