One city bleeds into another in the sprawl around Mexico City, so that it seems that one can drive for hours and not get beyond the urban confines. But beyond the city’s real limits and the relative wealth found inside them, in many areas poverty deepens, laws grow increasingly lax and crime intensifies. There is another divide, too, that reflects the gap between the urban rich and urban poor, between the city and the countryside, and it’s a digital one. Some 82 million Mexicans – roughly 70 percent of the population – don’t have access to a computer or the Internet.

This “digital divide” is starkly evident in the city of Nezahualcoyotl, Mexico state, which hugs the hem of Mexico City. It’s also a place where solutions are being created. A nonprofit organization called Proacceso is working to provide access to computers and the Internet to people who historically have had neither. Proacceso runs 70 “Network for Learning and Innovation” centers in 34 municipalities in the state of Mexico, including nine in Nezahualcoyotl. The centers are equipped with dozens of computers connected to high-speed Internet and staffed with instructors who teach subsidized basic courses on getting to know computers, the Internet and Microsoft Office.

The idea that drives Proacceso, said Aleph Molinari, the organization’s 30-year-old founder and president, is twofold: to bridge the “massive” digital divide in the country and to “democratize access to education” through technology.

Diana Carmona serves as a Proacceso instructor at a Learning and Innovation center in a Nezahualcoyotl neighborhood called Esperanza, or Hope. The center, which sits on a corner in front of a neglected park, is built of modular, recycled materials and outfitted with 46 computers. Wall-sized windows let in natural light. Between the rush of students – primary, secondary and high school kids, as well as their mothers and fathers and older adults – to the center’s different courses, Carmona spoke about the neighborhood’s needs and the many motivations that bring people through the door.

“There are mothers who come and say, ‘I want to help my children with their homework,’ ” Carmona said. “There are seniors who come and say, ‘My grandchildren are in Chicago, and I’ve never met them.’ We help them connect.”

Proacceso also helps people learn to look for jobs online, do the bookkeeping for their formal or informal business and find the information available on the Web for whatever their needs are. The economic needs are many, and their digital knowledge is often severely limited: The average user of a Proacceso learning center comes from a household of four with an average monthly income of 3,600 pesos, or about $260. Sixty-eight percent of users have never touched a computer.

“There are so many people without access,” Carmona said. “People come feeling ashamed. But they start breaking barriers after coming to the center.”

Molinari founded Proacceso in 2008. Growing up, the Mexico City native traveled the country with surfing buddies to far-flung beach communities and rural pueblos and got a firsthand look at the country’s vast inequality. Later, he studied economics and critical theory abroad and returned home with the idea of doing something to narrow the country’s socioeconomic divisions.

Over time, he said, “I became sharply aware that education is the only thing that is going to break the poverty chain. It’s the only thing that is going to bring real opportunities, that’s going to change things. It will take awhile but that’s where we should be investing.”

Proacceso started with 10 learning centers through a partnership with Mexico state. The project beat its user targets the first year, attracting 63,000 users—13,000 more than planned. That success drew attention and more funding. Microsoft donated $1.7 million in software licenses; Google donated its Labs, AdWords and educational programs; Dell donated the equipment to outfit two learning centers.

Molinari wants to see the program grow beyond the 180,000 current users—48,000 of whom have graduated from Proacceso’s courses—to reach more people countrywide and grow “the radius of impact.” He expects to expand coverage into marginalized areas and other Mexican states in the coming year.

Molinari’s vision goes beyond building a bridge across the digital divide. He envisions an age in which businesses and organizations move past social responsibility departments or the environmental initiatives, which amount to add-ons. Rather, he sees Proacceso as emblematic of a movement to ingrain social and environmental consciousness into the very core of the organization.

“The important thing is we need to create projects that assimilate the natural metabolism of the world in terms of having a positive impact,” he said.

In Molinari’s estimation, that’s where the world should be headed.

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About the author:

Lauren Villagran is a freelance journalist based in Mexico City.

The views expressed above are those of the author, and not necessarily representative of the views of the Mahindra Group.

Push open the door to the Mercado Mayapan in El Paso, Texas, and you can smell the food revolution at hand.

Nopales—green cactus paddles—stuffed with cheese and mushrooms sizzle on the grill. Burritos made of handmade tortillas stuffed with potatoes and green chile give off their spicy aroma. Pozole made with red chile-spiced broth and hearty kernels of white corn steams in large pot. The pre-Hispanic elements of the Mercado’s menu—cactus and corn and tortillas and beans, among other foods—are the foundation of a health initiative here aimed at promoting a healthy, traditional diet to a community deeply affected by obesity, diabetes and other health issues.

Reconnecting locals to their Mexican roots—starting with food—is the Mercado’s mission, says Rubí Orozco, who last year redesigned the menu at the Mercado’s cafeteria and daycare.

“There is a forgetting” that happens when people cross the border, she says. “The longer people are here, the worse their health outcomes are.”

The Mercado serves a neighborhood that has been through hard times. The Chamizal, as the neighborhood is known, never recovered from the shift of the clothing factories to Mexico (and later China) with the advent of the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1994. Many of the women who worked in the industry lost their jobs and families are still struggling.

The Chamizal is one of the poorest zip codes in the U.S. Some 70 percent of residents do not have a high school diploma; 67 percent live in poverty. The median income in the area is $11,362, which reflects the kind of employment available: temporary or low-paid jobs or work in the informal economy.

Health is an issue. Twenty-four percent of El Paso adults are obese, according to the Centers for Disease Control. A study of youth in the Chamizal neighborhood showed that a third are at risk for being overweight or obese.

As people immigrate and create new lives in the U.S., they often opt for the convenience of packaged and fast foods; the healthy ways of the past are left to memory, Orozco says.

That’s where the Mercado comes in. Orozco started by drastically changing the menu at the daycare, which serves 40 area children. She switched from a menu built on heat-and-serve, packaged foods to a menu dominated by fresh produce and notable for its use of Mesoamerican foods like amaranth, cactus, beans and herbs.

Reconnecting with Mexican tradition is critical, says Lorena Andrade, who runs the Mercado’s daycare.

Rubi Orozco teaches children at the Mercado Mayapan about traditional Mesoamerican foods

“To us, as workers and as people in the community, when the women were getting laid off, we always said, ‘We don’t advance because of our culture, because we’re too Mexican,’” Andrade says. “With our health, they tell us the same thing: We have high blood pressure because we eat Mexican food.”

Andrade believes in debunking that myth.

“We think that the closer we go back to our heritage the healthier we will be,” she says.

In addition to healthy food initiatives, the Mercado is working to create employment opportunities by creating a space to sell the artisan wares of locals as well as indigenous groups native to northern Mexico. Pottery, clothing, baskets, jewelry and other goods are sold at stalls in the Mercado’s artisan market adjacent to the cafeteria.

The Mercado, which was founded by the local nonprofit La Mujer Obrera, has its problems, to be sure. The Mercado currently runs on grant funding, which comes and goes, and it is not yet self-sustaining. The hours are erratic. Sometimes the market has plenty of produce for shoppers; often it does not. And yet for a community struggling to find hope, cultural connection and economic opportunity, the Mercado holds promise.

“For some people, it’s like the link to Mexico,” said Sandra Iturbe, a local midwife who spends many weekends at the Mercado. “The food tastes like my mamma made it, and I like what the organization stands for. I believe in their mission.”

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About the author:

Lauren Villagran is a freelance journalist based in Mexico City.

The views expressed above are those of the author, and not necessarily representative of the views of the Mahindra Group.