
Mission
CREAR’s mission is to provide free, high-quality, supplementary educational opportunities for the youth of Playa Samara and El Torito while serving as a space for mutual cultural enrichment between its students and volunteers.

vision
Our vision is a community of empowered, self-motivated, responsible, and employable individuals.
values
Our fundamental, underlying belief is that access to a quality education is a basic human
right that can change lives and transform
a country. Our multicultural team contributes
to the promotion of community development by exposing our local youth to opportunities for public service and civic engagement.
Our initiatives are born from collaboration
with our communities to provide educational and economic empowerment. Our work
is honest, transparent and ethical, committed to excellence. Our organization remains in constant reflection on how to best serve the needs of our people in order to create a stronger community.

Asociación CREAR exists in the province of Guanacaste, where 39% of people live in poverty.
Students attending public schools in the area attend class for an average of 3-4 hours each day.
Most of these schools function with...

Little to no extra-curricular activities
Limited access to computers
Understaffed
teams
Source: INEC
Playa Samara is a rural beach community on the coast of the Guanacaste province of Costa Rica. While Guanacaste is commonly referred to as the “scenic jewel” of Costa Rica for it's extraordinary beaches, small-town feel and friendly locals, it is also the poorest province in the country, with 39% of the local people living in poverty amidst vast amounts of touristic wealth and a staggering cost of living.
The latest household survey conducted by the Instituto Nacional de Estatística y Censos de Costa Rica (INEC) found the unemployment rate in the Chorotega region, where Samara is located, to be 17 %, and 14.2% in the rest of Costa Rica.
Furthermore, only 21.4% of those in Sámara have attended secondary school education and higher, while 46% of those in Costa Rica have acquired at least a high school diploma. In combination, the unemployment rate and lack of education create a community in need of the supplementary educational endeavors provided by CREAR.




OUR TEAM
CREAR thrives on the utilization of a small, high-impact staff and a plethora of dependable volunteers to achieve its goal of promoting educational excellence in the youth of the Samara and El Torito communities. In addition to expanding our staff, in 2016 alone CREAR was fortunate enough to receive 20 interns from 5 different countries and over 130 short-term volunteers who dedicated their time and unique talents to the advancement of our organization as a whole.