Scholarship Profile - Ana (by Todd)
I'm going to post stories about some of the scholarship winners. Here's the first one.
I was in the aldea of Los Izotes, walking around, and inviting people to apply for the scholarship. I came to a house (withabout half a dozen giggling kids in tow) where there live two girls who we know pretty well from coming to Los Izotes every Friday.
One of the girls is fourteen, the other is twenty. I told them about the scholarship, and then sat down to answer any questions. To my surprise, the 20-year old, Ana, bombarded me with questions. I sat talking to her for 45 minutes! Normally it takes me 5 minutes.
Is there an age limit? How important are grades? What else is it based on? What does it cover? -- I could tell by all her questions that she was very interested.
And then she asked me if she could take the scholarship and go to school in Talanga.
Let me do a little bit of background here. Los Izotes is a small aldea of about 300 people. It is about an hour away driving from Talanga, where we volunteers live. Talanga is a ‘big’ town of 30,000, with four secondary schools. Los Izotes has no secondary school. But there is a nearby, larger aldea, which does. That school is about an hour away from Los Izotes walking. With a bike, which is included in the scholarship, it’s 15 or 20 minutes.
So I was surprised that she would prefer to go to a school in Talanga, which would mean she would have to live with relatives during the week. Going to the nearby school, she could live at home with her family.
So I investigated more. It turns out that girls do not feel safe making the trip to that high school alone. They don’t even feel safe walking with other boys from the town. Ana told me that two girls would have to go together for it to be a safe venture.
As a result, no girls from Los Izotes currently go to secondary school. Three boys do. As I thought about it, I realized people had been talking around the fact all along. One mother earlier that day said she’d send her daughter to school if another girl went.
“Wow,” I thought to myself, “I was in this for social justice, and lo and behold, it intersects with feminism too!” (Maybe I wasn't that eloquent when I was thinking to myself, but you get the idea :).
But that’s not all. I asked her why she had never gone to secondary school, since she’d graduated from elementary school some five or six years earlier. She said that she enrolled in school, but that after a few months, her father pulled her out. “He said he didn’t have the desire to be putting a girl through school anymore.” As it turns out, the same thing happened to her 14-year old sister.
Feminism again. I guess there are two things going on here. First, there are these two girls, at least one of whom clearly has great desire to go to school, and they can’t because of their family structure, and because they’re girls. But giving them a scholarship would enable them to go, even if they didn’t have that support from their father.
And second, there is the fact that one girl alone can’t get to the secondary school. I think it’s a bit of chicken-and-egg: the few girls who want to go to school are all waiting for someone else to commit to going before they commit themselves. I couldn’t help thinking to myself, “What if we funded two?” If we could fund two girls, not only would it be getting those two girls to school, it would be opening the door for other girls to go as well.
Secondary school in Honduras is three years long. For those three years, any girl who wants to go to school will know that there are at least two other girls going with whom she could go safely.
As it turns out, we did commit to fund two girls from Los Izotes. And Ana was one of them. And in addition to those two girls, two other girls (for a total of four) will be entering "colegio" this year. I am so excited about that! Although I admit, I was a little surprised to find that in my pursuit of social justice I was doing a little bit of feminism on the side (my sister will be proud :) .
Make a Donation to the scholarship fund.
I was in the aldea of Los Izotes, walking around, and inviting people to apply for the scholarship. I came to a house (withabout half a dozen giggling kids in tow) where there live two girls who we know pretty well from coming to Los Izotes every Friday.
One of the girls is fourteen, the other is twenty. I told them about the scholarship, and then sat down to answer any questions. To my surprise, the 20-year old, Ana, bombarded me with questions. I sat talking to her for 45 minutes! Normally it takes me 5 minutes.
Is there an age limit? How important are grades? What else is it based on? What does it cover? -- I could tell by all her questions that she was very interested.
And then she asked me if she could take the scholarship and go to school in Talanga.
Let me do a little bit of background here. Los Izotes is a small aldea of about 300 people. It is about an hour away driving from Talanga, where we volunteers live. Talanga is a ‘big’ town of 30,000, with four secondary schools. Los Izotes has no secondary school. But there is a nearby, larger aldea, which does. That school is about an hour away from Los Izotes walking. With a bike, which is included in the scholarship, it’s 15 or 20 minutes.
So I was surprised that she would prefer to go to a school in Talanga, which would mean she would have to live with relatives during the week. Going to the nearby school, she could live at home with her family.
So I investigated more. It turns out that girls do not feel safe making the trip to that high school alone. They don’t even feel safe walking with other boys from the town. Ana told me that two girls would have to go together for it to be a safe venture.
As a result, no girls from Los Izotes currently go to secondary school. Three boys do. As I thought about it, I realized people had been talking around the fact all along. One mother earlier that day said she’d send her daughter to school if another girl went.
“Wow,” I thought to myself, “I was in this for social justice, and lo and behold, it intersects with feminism too!” (Maybe I wasn't that eloquent when I was thinking to myself, but you get the idea :).
But that’s not all. I asked her why she had never gone to secondary school, since she’d graduated from elementary school some five or six years earlier. She said that she enrolled in school, but that after a few months, her father pulled her out. “He said he didn’t have the desire to be putting a girl through school anymore.” As it turns out, the same thing happened to her 14-year old sister.
Feminism again. I guess there are two things going on here. First, there are these two girls, at least one of whom clearly has great desire to go to school, and they can’t because of their family structure, and because they’re girls. But giving them a scholarship would enable them to go, even if they didn’t have that support from their father.
And second, there is the fact that one girl alone can’t get to the secondary school. I think it’s a bit of chicken-and-egg: the few girls who want to go to school are all waiting for someone else to commit to going before they commit themselves. I couldn’t help thinking to myself, “What if we funded two?” If we could fund two girls, not only would it be getting those two girls to school, it would be opening the door for other girls to go as well.
Secondary school in Honduras is three years long. For those three years, any girl who wants to go to school will know that there are at least two other girls going with whom she could go safely.
As it turns out, we did commit to fund two girls from Los Izotes. And Ana was one of them. And in addition to those two girls, two other girls (for a total of four) will be entering "colegio" this year. I am so excited about that! Although I admit, I was a little surprised to find that in my pursuit of social justice I was doing a little bit of feminism on the side (my sister will be proud :) .
Make a Donation to the scholarship fund.
posted by at 2/22/2006 10:18:00 AM
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