History

In 1986, a vision of CentroNía was conceived by a small group of thoughtful and concerned low-income parents who had a deep and invested interest in ensuring that their children had access to high-quality bilingual educational services. CentroNía provides the local community with a multitude of services and programs including attentive and caring early childhood education services, before and after-school child care, management of DC Bilingual Public Charter School, tutoring in math and reading, youth development, a full arts enrichment program, professional development opportunities for adults, and resources for families.

“CentroNía” is derived from Spanish, Swahili and Esperanto, a universal language created in the late 19th century to help bridge cultures. Centro means “center” in Spanish. Nía means “our” in Esperanto and “purpose” in Swahili. It is further complemented with a bilingual tagline:

“growing, learning, leading”
“crecimiento, aprendizaje, liderazgo”

For this reason CentroNía is a multi-site organization that exists to serve an entire family, from infancy to adulthood, and to teach and improve the lives of children, youth, and parents within the community and beyond. At present, CentroNía is located throughout the region offering programs at three center-based facilities. Our programs reach more than 1,500 low income children and families annually.

The organization will continue to work to:

• ensure that every child receives a high quality education regardless of socio-economic background
• build a community where all teachers and staff are growing and learning along with the students
• acknowledge that high quality education is impossible without a healthy, stable family environment
• include those we serve in every aspect of our design and organizational strategy as we grow and evolve