Say Yes to Women's Education of Oaxaca, Mexico.

Dear donor,

I am Maricela, originally from an indigenous community in Oaxaca. I speak the Chatina language.

I was a Fondo Guadalupe Musalem scholarship recipient from 2006 to 2009. I want to share with you that when I applied for this scholarship I needed the money to study; I had no idea what awaited me as a scholarship holder. Each time I came to receive training, I realized that my story was very similar to those of my classmates.

Here at the Fondo Guadalupe Musalem I learned to give and share. I decided to work for my community because I realized that for things to change, the solutions have to come from those within the communities. From 2006 to 2011, I conducted several activities such as discussions, talks, book management, but I understood that I could not achieve much alone and in 2012, with community partners, we founded a collective that we call Sha Kuií, which means New Light.

While studying Education Sciences at UABJO and in order not to lose the link that had established community work and the relationship with civil associations, I was doing activities with the Rosario Castellanos Women's Studies Group to benefit my classmates at the Fondo Guadalupe Musalem. I collaborated with the GES since beginning to study at the university and it was my first work experience. They invited me to be part of the Assembly and since about 4 years ago I have been part of the Board of Directors.

I went on to connect with other organizations and because of the work I was doing, they proposed that I join the General Assembly of the Simone de Boauvoir Leadership Institute, whose work contributes to understanding interculturality, with a focus on women and indigenous peoples.

Since 2014 I have participated in the National Political Assembly of Indigenous Women, a branch of a nationwide network of indigenous women working to make our rights known and defended. As of January 2020, I will be the Ecology Director for three years in my community. This is a great achievement for me because in several communities in Oaxaca, women have no public participation.

I want to express my gratitude to you for donating to the Fondo Guadalupe Musalem. You cannot imagine all the changes that we generate. The support you are giving is being accompanied by tutors working in a developmental process of friendship and love. I invite you to continue donating, to continue being the voice of this project that supports the education of women.

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I am Lina Herrera, president of the Guadalupe Musalem Fund.
23 years ago I had the privilege of mentoring the second grantee of the fund. It was very special to be close to her, learn from her traditions and witness her challenges. I also watched her grow, mature and empower herself.

Since then, I have to collaborate voluntarily for this organization. This is work that inspires, nourishes, and teaches me the value of what is possible. I learn from these wonderful young women what is tenacity, simplicity, pride in their culture and the desire to continue studying and meet their goals.

It is not an easy task to excel in school, the circumstances in which these girls unfold include disadvantage and inequality: they are women, they are indigenous and they come from families with limited financial resources. They are young people who are at risk of dropping out of school because they live in an environment of profound gender inequality, the opportunities are not the same for men and women and yet, most of them, do not let these challenges take away the opportunity to continue studying and weaving the reality of their dreams.
It is worth mentioning that some of them travel up to 3 hours each way, every day, just to get to school from their communities.
For many, this vision includes helping their family experience a less difficult life than the one they have, and, not only do they get ahead but, they achieve much more than is expected from them.
From 1995 to date, 153 young women have been supported with high school scholarship and 46 who have benefited throughout their entire university career or part of it. We soon realized that it was not enough to give them the grant money, since they come from their communities (some of which are several hours away), we also offer them: a monthly stipend for her, the accompaniment of a mentor, academic support, workshops on different topics like violence prevention, leadership, equality of gender, community development and  medical and psychological care.

Recently I taught them a course on “Conflict resolution at school”, which offered them tools to help them have a more assertive communication with their classmates, teachers and family members; I was amazed at the way in which they understood the concepts, the testimonials they shared when applying the techniques at home, were extremely moving.

All this could not be a reality without the donations generously provided, by you and all the people who think like us at the Fund: access to education can change someone’s  life.

We are very excited to share that, with your support, by the end of October we achieved the initial goal of raising $ 18,000 US Dlls, enough to support 10 (of the total of 25) young high school students through the 2019-2020 school year. In addition, another 14 women get support for university studies in the same cycle.

We will close the year 2019 with a total of 60 women supported! We invite you to continue collaborating to our cause, to empower more women to have access to their education.
Thank you for making possible the fulfillment of so many dreams in Oaxaca, Mexico!

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