Tim Kelley’s annual summer trip to South and Central America included a stop in El Salvador to invest his time in a program that presents opportunities for young mothers and Grand Canyon University mission trip students.
Kelley, Chair of Entrepreneurship in GGU’s Colangelo College of Business and chairman of the Canyon Angels angel investment group, has embarked on a program designed to train these young mothers to develop an entrepreneurial mindset that will help them build their own destiny.
“Whether it's starting some business as simple as house cleaning, or making textiles, whatever the case might be,” Kelley said from Central Mexico, where he was wrapping up a trip.
He envisions a way in which GCU can provide inspiration through its Global Outreach mission trips, in which students travel to all parts of the world to serve as short- and long-term missionaries in fields such as health care, physical therapy, social work, education, sports and agriculture.
He hopes students might travel as soon as winter to be a part of the Develop Your Model of Entrepreneurship program at an orphanage for the mothers.
“So many of our amazing students do missions where they want to be in places like El Salvador, with these populations that need inspiration,” said Kelley, who has coordinated plans with GCU Provost Dr. Randy Gibb.
“And then this would just be the first step. There's so many other expansion points across El Salvador, across the larger system, but that's the work right now that we're doing.”
For the fourth consecutive summer, Kelley was part of a group of professors that taught the DYME program at several sites in Colombia, including La Javeriana, a Jesuit University.
After teaching the courses, Kelley traveled to El Salvador.
Kelley’s family once hosted exchange student Maricela McDonnell, who ended up staying with his family for 15 years and marrying Bob McDonnell, who worked for Kelley’s father. The McDonnells started their own business in Portland, Oregon.
The business generated enough income to start Mi Casa International orphanage in El Salvador. The operation has grown to include three homes – one for young women, one for young men and a new home for pregnant mothers. The newest home opened 18 months ago.
“It's now 15 mothers, and of the those who have already given birth, all of them have decided to keep their babies,” Kelley said.
“We have the content. We have the people, and it's just putting these things together to make the world a better place. That's the idea.”
Kelley said El Salvador and Argentina are among the few countries exempt from bureaucracy that impedes efforts to create and formalize businesses.
Those barriers haven’t discouraged program participants in South America from learning more about entrepreneurship. Kelley said dozens of students traveled as far as 12 hours through Venezuela to participate in the entrepreneurship training seminars in the Colombia border town of Cucuta.
More than 200 people attended the Cucuta seminar, and classes in the Colombia capital of Bogota attracted more than 100.
“It just keeps growing. It gets bigger and bigger each year,” Kelley said.
GCU News senior writer Mark Gonzales can be reached at [email protected]
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