As President of Asociación de Empresarios para el Desarrollo (AED) and Mesoamerica Foundation, Luis Javier Castro has been committed to the sustainable development of Central America over the years.

Mesoarmerica Foundation actively seeks projects that are designed to create the most sustainable value throughout Central America. It channels funds to areas with the most need and serves as a catalyst to develop and establish integral solutions to social problems in the region. Being Education one of the main areas of focus, Luis Javier also decided to take the Presidency of AED in 2005.

AED is a non-profit organization integrated by 80 Costa Rican companies of different sizes and from various industries. Its mission is to promote Corporate Social Responsibility and generate direct involvement, volunteering, alliances and strengthening of nonprofit organizations so as to encourage sustainable human development in Costa Rica. It fosters the public-private coalition, bringing together companies, institutions, individuals, and non-governmental organizations to improve the community’s capacity to educate its new generations. Over the last couple of years, AED had been transformed by the Education Sector Development Model’s implementation. This model addresses the principal challenges of Costa Rica’s public education system. Its core element is the transfer of experimental best practices from the private sector to communities. It is a system in which companies adopt a community and create a virtuous cycle of improvement. There are 6 other initiatives that AED executes along with other NGO’s with similar goals. They are: Infrastructure and Technology Improvement, Critical Thinking, Exclusion Prevention, Violence Prevention, Employability and Art, Creativity and Innovation.

Through AED, Mesoamerica Foundation is an active sponsor of two specific projects, PIIAD and Costa Rica Joven.

Under the Infrastructure and Technology Improvement initiative, PIIAD consists of a software application that facilitates administration and teaching in the educational centers. Last year, through a pilot plan, 125 teachers were trained and started using PIIAD at their schools. Faculty’s time invested in administrative tasks was reduced by 30 to 50 hours a month through the use of this software. For this year, the goal is to have the application installed and used by 200 multi-teacher schools and 400 single teacher schools.

Costa Rica Joven seeks to reinforce the student community in the development of moral, cultural, social and civic values through specific actions designed to help solve community challenges. The methodology has been validated in 33 elementary schools and 50 high schools. This project is developed under the Critical Thinking initiative.