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Entrepreneur Helps Immigrants Believe in Themselves
By: Julie Kotz Richie Calendar Editor for Dallas Family. August 23, 2003
Growing up in Acapulco may sound like a dream to many Americans who envision days spent lounging on white sand and swimming in warm water. But the reality is quite different for most Mexicans who live there, according to Elvia Wallace-Martinez, who grew up in Acapulco, leaving only after a failed marriage. In 1977, with the peso devalued, the newly single Wallace-Martinez needed to support herself and her Peruvian mother and her economy. She knew the only way to do it was to go to the United States and achieve the American dream..
OUR STORY
As an immigrant herself, founder of DCET understood the needs of the immigrant community
In 1995 DCET Founder Elvia Wallace-Martinez designed DCET as a Spanish Radio Talk show called DEBES CREER EN TI (Believe in Yourself), and also a 2-two TV segments, and 52 newspaper columns in Spanish about virtues/family values. These initiatives in 1998, then turned into a non-profit organization housing Literacy and Community programs for Hispanic/Latino families in its majority. With limited funding and working out of her personal finances, DCET Founder started DCET without a salary. DCET initiatives help students enter the workforce field and prevents them from crime and welfare dependency.
Assisting the fast growing number of Hispanic/Latino families in the Dallas/Fort Worth Texas area
Providing Literacy and Community programs to prepare the Dallas/Fort Worth families to improve the quality of their lives, enables them to contribute economically and culturally to their diverse communities and become productive members of society
We all know that additional support for education becomes more relevant when is directed to sectors of the population that most need it, in our case: The The illiterate Hispanic population in the Dallas/Fort Worth area keeps on growing disproportionally, representing a challenge to the progress of this Country, so we need to act fast! Let me share some statistics as per last census:
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7.3% of the 240,373 population of Irving, TX, are persons 65 years and over.
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It is estimated that 41.3% of the whole population in Irving are Hispanic/Latino persons– so roughly there must be an estimated 5,000 persons of 50 years and over.
A good percentage of them have not reached naturalization yet, and have only remained as legal residents.
support for education is intrinsically relevant because education is the vehicle of progress of promotion and development of any society in the world.
Fighting illiteracy
All the DCET Educational and Cultural programs designed since 1995 are committed to save lives and have make an enormous difference in many people. Our legacy will leave a shelter for Hispanic/Latino immigrants and other immigrant families to succeed in a new country while becoming productive members of society. DCET wants to continue closing this big gap and while addressing the needs of this untapped target market.
EDUCATION IS EVERYTHING we want to be partners with everybody in preventing illiteracy. We need to make citizens more than consumers and consider to not be reactive, but proactive and come up with innovator ways to secure our budget towards EDUCATION.
DCET wants to be the ANSWER to social progress in the Dallas/Fort Worth area.
We need your support!
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We Believe in Ourselves
Yes We Can!
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