Perkin Educational Opportunities Foundation

Perkin Educational Opportunities Foundation (PEOF) is a registered non-profit U.S. public charity 501(c)(3) which is also registered in El Salvador as a foreign non-profit foundation. Based in Perquín, Morazán, PEOF was founded in 2007 by a small group of Americans and Salvadorans with the goal of providing a higher quality of education in Central America in the pursuit of overcoming local socio-economic inequalities and stagnation. Nearly ten years on, PEOF is driven largely by Ronald Brenneman, an American who has been linked with the people of Morazán since 1983 when much of the population found refuge in Honduras. The board members of PEOF are a multi-disciplined, broad-based group of individuals who each became aware of the educational needs of the population through their own experience in the area.  The foundation is designed to focus and multiply those individual efforts, as well as provide the opportunity to individuals, groups and institutions to join a long-term, non-partisan endeavor that will have a lasting positive impact in an area long crippled by poverty and stagnation.

PEOF's first major contribution is the Colegio Amún Shéa, also located the town of Perquin, Morazan, El Salvador. This center was founded in 2008 for the purpose of training young people in leadership, entrepreneurship and technical ability, with a commitment to improve their lives and those of their communities. In particular, we work to ensure that young people become agents of change in their own reality, encouraging their full and equal participation in the development process of their community. Through an innovative educational program, duly approved by the Ministry of Education of El Salvador, our students perform practical applications of their academic knowledge in order to realize opportunities for personal and social development. The center was also created as a laboratory to create, refine and offer a continued constructive contribution to the process of improving education in El Salvador. To do this, we work with the state, municipal and community institutions to find the answers that education can provide to a challenging and changing reality.