SCHOLARSHIPS FOR SCHOOL

We believe that education is a vital avenue out of poverty.  Many children in Intibuca do not receive an education past the elementary level, at which time the government no longer provides the supplies necessary to attend school.  Children often leave school to work in the fields at age 9 as the families cannot afford the extra costs incurred in providing these supplies.   Through the support of generous donors who are matched with eligible students, Shoulder to Shoulder provides education assistance to young people whose families are otherwise unable to afford their education.
We presently have Honduran staff coordinating the scholarship program, providing tutoring when necessary and offering life skills classes:  Kelvin Fuentes in Santa Lucia and Javier Mejia in Concepcion.   To be eligible for assistance, the students must go through a process to determine the most eligible of students based on economic need, academic achievement and motivation. A committee made up of teachers and Shoulder to Shoulder staff reviews applications and makes recommendations for the scholarships. Recipients receive junior high or high school equivalent education which they would otherwise be unable to afford.  We presently have 85 students enrolled in the scholarship program for the 2008 school year.  Fifteen of these students have advanced to programs in other cities, including Teguc, La Esperanza and San Pedro Sula. 

We invite you to share in a closer look at a few of our recent scholarship recipients and how the efforts of Shoulder to Shoulder have had an impact on their lives:

Noemi
La Guaruma, Concepción.

Noemi is a unique scholarship recipient in that she completed  6th grade at the elementary school in La Guaruma 9 years ago but was not able to keep studying due to lack of funds.  Now that she has been awarded a scholarship she is motivated to continue her studies.  She lives with her mother, brother and an aunt as her father left them when she was 4 years old. 

Although the assistance will not totally pay for all of her expenses, she is willing to spend her free time making small handicrafts to sell in order to make up the difference.  She says she will do whatever it takes to complete her education so that she can secure a job that will help her family.  She is very mature and motivated.  She attends church at the Santidad Monte Sion and is very involved in the activities there.  Noemi is grateful for this opportunity to make a dream come true.

Elida
El Leoncito, Magdalena
Beginning Social Promotion studies in January, 2006 

Elida is a soft-spoken but direct eighteen-year-old who, despite her humble manner, radiates a strong sense of confidence and poise. She lives with her mother, grandmother, and twelve siblings whose ages range from 27 years to 2 months old.  She has never met her father, and the family depends on the agricultural day labor of two of her brothers and the nanny job of one of her sisters. Elida is the only member of her family to have continued school past the sixth grade; she received scholarship support from Shoulder to Shoulder for three years and in 2005 graduated from the local secondary school with high grades and a persistent desire to pursue further education. Ideally, she would like to enroll in a 3-year program in social promotion in a town about 40 minutes away by car. A career in social promotion, she says, would allow her to get a steady and rewarding job in a reasonable amount of time, and it would be work she could do in her home community. She views the social service requirement of the scholarship positively, citing both the opportunity to serve her community and the practical work experience as benefits of the program. In order to continue her studies, however, she will need to find outside support, as her family cannot afford to pay for neither her school costs nor her room and board. Elida displayed exceptional maturity as she expressed her gratitude for the opportunity that she has had to study, explaining that being so poor, a chance like this one is truly a dream come true. She hopes that once she improves her situation, she might be able to help others in a similar way. “I’ll never forget what it is like to be poor and need help,” she says, “so I hope someday I’ll be able to help someone else like me.”

Alicia
El Leoncito, Magdalena
Continuing Commerce studies in 2007

With a soft and unassuming smile, Alicia will tell you that her goal, ultimately, is to break the cycle of poverty that her family has known for so long. She wants to pursue a high school diploma in commerce so that she can get a good job, bring money home, and improve her family’s standard of living. At 17 years old, she lives with her parents, grandmother, and six brothers and sisters; she is fourth in line among the siblings. Her father is employed at a small shop in a nearby town, where he sells bed frames, and her older brothers work the family’s land and sometimes hire out for daytime construction work in order to bring home extra money.  None of the other children continued their studies past sixth grade; Alicia was the first to attend middle school, which she was able to do with the funding she received from Shoulder to Shoulder donors. The commerce degree that she is pursuing in La Esperanza, a town about a 4-hour drive away, will allow her to return to work close to home. Looking further ahead, one position she expresses interest in is that of the middle school’s administrator. As she helped American doctors on a 2007 brigade check in patients at a field clinic, Alicia expressed enthusiasm about collaborating with Shoulder to Shoulder to find a social service project – either working with the clinic itself or in a school – that would benefit the community as well as her professional development.  She will graduate at the end of the 2008 school year.