On Monday, Latin pop superstar Ricky Martin inaugurated an education center for at-risk children in his home land of Puerto Rico.

For the past six years, Martin's charity, the Ricky Martin Foundation, which is dedicated to "the well being of children around the world in critical areas such as education, health and social justice," has been working with officials from Loiza, a town east San Juan, to build the center, ContactMusic.com reports.

Puerto Rican Governor Alejandro Garcia Padilla and Senate leader Eduardo Bhatia were also present at the opening ceremony of the center, named Centro TAU (the Tau Center).

According to Fox News Latino, Centro TAU features a library, an auditorium, nine classrooms for both secondary and higher education, as well as places where kids can enjoy recreational activities and the fine arts.

In addition, the facility has the ability to take care of 120 children under the age of three.

"Today, 120 children and teenagers get a new chance," Martin said at the inauguration ceremony.

The center has the potential to help improve the community of Loiza, which reportedly has a dropout rate of 47.3 percent and an unemployment rate of 29.2 percent.

Latina magazine reports that 68 percent of residents in Loiza live below the poverty line, making them targets for crimes such as human trafficking.

"Human trafficking looks for and finds more children and young people that we can imagine, and we can't be their accomplices," Martin said. "We have to give these kids the tools they need. That is part of the comprehensive mission of the Tau Center, of the school and of our allies."

Martin has showed interest in human trafficking before. In May, his Ricky Martin Foundation released the follow-up to a 2010 report on human trafficking in Puerto Rico. The report was completed with the help of the University of Puerto Rico, Baltimore's Johns Hopkins University and Cesar Rey, a sociologist, FNL reports.
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Follow Scharon Harding on Twitter: @ScharHar.

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