ASPIRA of New York serves thousands of students in 16 after school programs through our SONYC, COMPASS, Beacon, and Leadership College Access programs.
Our Programs at High School of World Cultures
ASPIRA of New York continues to support the lives of children, families, and communities in the pursuit of educational excellence through leadership development activities and programs as it has for the last 61 years.
History
In 1961, Dr. Antonia Pantoja and a group of Puerto Rican educators and professionals created ASPIRA (which means aspire in Spanish) to address the exceedingly high drop-out rate and low educational attainment of Puerto Rican youth. They were convinced that the only way to free the Puerto Rican community from poverty and promote its full development was by focusing on young people’s education and developing their leadership potential, self-esteem, and pride in their cultural heritage. This was the best way, they believed, of ensuring that youth would become productive members of society and leaders for the development of their own community. ASPIRA conveyed in its name the expectation that Puerto Rican youth could succeed if they dared to aspire.
Since its formation, ASPIRA has grown from a small nonprofit agency in New York City to a national association with statewide Associate organizations in Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, including Puerto Rico, and the National Office in Washington, D.C.
Presently, ASPIRA serves over 85,000 students each year in over 400 schools through its core activity, the ASPIRA Clubs. ASPIRA provides leadership training, career and college counseling, financial aid, scholarship assistance, educational advocacy, cultural activities, and most importantly, continuing opportunities to implement community action projects.
Throughout its existence, ASPIRA’s commitment to its initial mission of leadership development has remained unchanged. All programs still aim to help Latino/youth develop their intellectual and leadership potential to achieve educational excellence and make a long-term contribution to improving their own lives and their community but also reaches out to include all non-Latinos.
ASPIRA AND HSWC
Aspira first came to HSWC in 2018 and has served as a springboard for community action. Ms. Escoto, a HSWC veteran teacher of 22 years, serves as the teacher in charge, but sees herself as more of a conductor of beautiful programming that helps students grow as students and young adults. This year the Aspira group is piloting a podcast as a medium to help their community learn English and stay connected. The cornerstone of this program believes that true equality must go hand in hand with literacy.