For Pepa Hernández Vargas, Founder and Director of Seville Abroad, international education has always been personal.
Long before she created a study abroad organization, she experienced the power of living abroad herself. That experience shaped the way she saw the world and later inspired her to build something more focused, caring, and personal for high school students in Spain.
From Study Abroad Student to Founder
Pepa was 20 years old when she left Spain for the first time to study abroad. At the time, it was not common. In fact, she was quite an exception. Her mother spent a month crying because she was leaving.
But the experience changed everything.
Studying abroad gave Pepa more confidence, independence, and a new way of seeing the world. From that moment on, she understood how powerful living abroad could be.
Years later, Pepa became a host family and saw study abroad programs from a different side. What she saw did not fully convince her. Many programs felt too broad, too large, and not always adapted to what students actually needed.
At the same time, high school programs were growing quickly. Pepa realized that teenagers needed a different kind of support. A 16-year-old studying abroad should not be treated the same way as an adult student.
That realization became the start of Seville Abroad.
Building a Program Around Care
Pepa founded Seville Abroad, an organization in Spain focused on high school students. From the beginning, she wanted to build something more personal and carefully guided than a mass program.
That focus was not easy. Seville Abroad started small in a competitive field, built around a single country and a specific student group. Over time, the organization grew through trust, consistency, and strong relationships with students, families, schools, host families, and local partners.
Today, Seville Abroad has grown into a team of six people dedicated to supporting students across academic year programs, summer programs, and school trips. Still, the mission remains the same: to create a high school study abroad experience that feels personal, safe, and meaningful.
Explore Programs from Seville Abroad
The Work That Still Drives Her
What still drives Pepa today is the transformation she sees in students throughout the academic year.
She has watched students arrive in Spain shy, unsure of themselves, or disconnected from their social lives back home. Over time, she sees them change. They make friends, gain confidence, become more independent, and begin to understand themselves in a new way.
By the end of the year, many students leave Spain in tears, not because the experience was easy, but because it became meaningful.
For Pepa, that is the most rewarding part of the work.
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