Mayor Potencial was founded by Nancy Bell, who has strong roots in El Rodeito, Honduras. In the rural village where Bell was born, the nearest high school is a three-hour walk away along hilly, rock-covered dirt roads. With no transportation other than donkeys, teenagers in the village of El Rodeito typically drop out of the Ramon Rosa school after sixth grade and work on their families' farms. By
the age of 16, most of the girls in the village are already married and having kids. Bell was one of the few lucky ones. In 2007, she attended The Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management at Cornell University and graduated with a bachelor's degree. While she lives more than 2,000 miles from Honduras, Bell has not forgotten the struggles of the people who live in El Rodeito. In 2013, she founded Mayor Potencial ("greatest potential"), a nonprofit organization that is raising money to improve the educational system for children, help business owners expand their enterprises for a global market, and provide experiential learning opportunities for Cornell students. Mayor Potencial has three key areas of focus:
1 - Improving access to education in rural Latin America,
2 - Helping small agribusiness owners expand to global markets and
3 - Providing affordable experiential learning opportunities that expose Cornell University students to social entrepreneurship and its impact on impoverished communities.
