About
Our Story
The name Awenyo is a creative fusion blending words and meanings from various African countries such as the Kikongo and Akan languages, of the Democratic Republic of Congo and West Africa, regions that are the ancestral home lands to much of the population of Curaçao. Its meaning weaves together ‘people’, ‘unity’, and ‘togetherness’. And for our team it speaks to the idea of working together to weave lives, communities, and destinies together into a shared common future. It is a word that speaks to the importance of connection—between individuals, communities, generations, and to the earth—and of the strength and potentiality that is released when people come together with vision and a common purpose. The concept of coming together is at the heart of our story and our vision, particularly as today Curaçao derives its cultural and creative strength from the fact that it is a fusion of peoples and cultural threads from over 55 different nationalities.
Who We Are
The Awenyo Foundation is a nonprofit organization based in Willemstad, Curaçao, working to support individuals and communities through education and capacity-building. Our focus is on helping people develop the knowledge, skills, and qualities needed to contribute meaningfully to the betterment of society.
We believe that every person carries within them the potential to create positive change — and that education, when guided by values and connected to a broader vision of service, can help unlock that potential. Our work brings people together in shared efforts to learn, grow, and build a future rooted in dignity, unity, and purpose.
Our Vision
Deeply rooted in our founding ideals is also a profound sense of hope: the belief that through an empowering, enabling, and enabling process of working together to learn, to search for and apply new insights from the universe of knowledge, that the betterment of the world is indeed possible, that we can not only dream of, but slowly, hand-in-hand, actively build a world more luminous, more compassionate, and more deeply connected than the present makes possible to envision. The future we long for is not built by a few, and cannot be realized as a fragmented society, but requires and impels us to foster unity as not only an end goal that we seek but as the most potent means of building such a better world.
At Awenyo, we envision education as more than a system — it is a vital force that shapes how we live, how we relate to one another, and how we build the world around us. We believe that true and lasting development cannot be imposed from outside, but must emerge from within — when individuals and communities gain the capacity to chart their own path, cultivate their talents, and contribute meaningfully to the advancement of society.
Our approach centers on the belief that meaningful transformation must happen on multiple levels: within the individual, among communities, and across institutions and structures. We see each child as a sacred trust of the whole, and each educator and youth as a potential leader in the movement toward a more compassionate and cohesive society.
The work of Awenyo is organized around three core areas that are deeply interconnected:
Transformative Teacher Training, which supports educators in rethinking their role — not just as transmitters of information, but as guides and facilitators who nurture capacity, critical thinking, and moral reasoning in the classroom.
Youth Empowerment, which prepares young people to see themselves as agents of change — capable of engaging in acts of service, assuming responsibility for their communities, and leading with integrity and purpose.
Curriculum Development, which aims to reshape what and how we teach by integrating character formation, ethical awareness, and practical capabilities into the heart of educational content.
Across all of these, our approach is one of accompaniment. We walk alongside communities, listening deeply, learning together, and building the tools needed for self-directed growth and shared transformation.