Scholarship for Guatemalan Girls
Donation protected
Doña Olga has been through her fair share of ups and downs in life, but you wouldn’t be able to tell at first glance. As I sit across from her in a wall-less and door-less office—she has an ‘open door’ policy—she looks at me over her spectacles with a stern look on her face. I can understand why people feel intimidated by her. Doña Olga is a straightforward and sincere woman; she tells it how it is.
Her husband bought a one-way ticket to the U.S. twenty years ago and never looked back, leaving Doña Olga with an empty bank account and 4 young girls. In an effort to provide for them, she opened a Spanish learning school in Xela, the second largest city in Guatemala, called Sakribal. Doña Olga is credited with being the first woman to open and direct a school in the city.
Sakribal is ki-che´ for, “the place where the dawn broke.” The school’s website says the following about the name of choice:
“The dawn has always been a symbol of hope and holds the potential for positive change…It is our hope that in a spirit of cooperation, education and community, SAKRIBAL can add to the positive development of Guatemala.”
[It is my own personal theory that the school was also a “place where the dawn broke” for Doña Olga and her daughters, but that is up for debate.]
Not only has Doña Olga successfully managed to run this school for two decades, but she also raised her girls on her own and made sure that they got a chance to succeed; there is one doctor in the family, two communications specialists, and one graphic designer. She reasoned that if her four girls could go to college and have lucrative careers, other girls should have that opportunity as well. So she set up a scholarship program for indigenous girls living in the outskirts of Xela with little to no opportunity for educational advancement. You can find a list of the girls that Sakribal is currently sponsoring here.
Doña Olga confides in me however that she has had to scramble bits and pieces to pay the school’s rent. “It’s been a tough year,” she says. “Thank God all these students came in now because I was finally able to pay the overdue rent!”
The only time she gets emotional during our engaging chat is when she tells me about one of the scholarship recipients that has recently graduated from college and landed a stable job. “I’ve known her since she was a little girl, and she just graduated. I’m so proud,” she says, wiping away a few tears. She apologizes and quickly straightens herself out.
When I first came to her with the idea for starting this fund, her face quickly lit up. We hunched over the big desk in her wall-less office and she gave me a brief breakdown of how the scholarship money is distributed. Doña gives the girl’s family a monthly sum of Q100 (roughly $13.11 American dollars) throughout the year to help pay for her education. She requests report cards on a bi-annual basis to ensure that the girls are actually attending school. Ideally, she says, she would like to help all the girls in Guatemala. Realistically, she would be happy to help 10 more this year. Therefore, I have set the goal for the scholarship portion at Q12,000, or $1,574. I would also like to help pay the school’s rent for 6 months, which is Q4,000, or $525, a month; for a grand total of Q36,000, or $4,722.Because round numbers are nice, let’s aim for an even $4,800.
Thank you for reading and donating. For more information, visit them at http://www.sakribal.com/index.htm and be sure to like them on Facebook :)
Her husband bought a one-way ticket to the U.S. twenty years ago and never looked back, leaving Doña Olga with an empty bank account and 4 young girls. In an effort to provide for them, she opened a Spanish learning school in Xela, the second largest city in Guatemala, called Sakribal. Doña Olga is credited with being the first woman to open and direct a school in the city.
Sakribal is ki-che´ for, “the place where the dawn broke.” The school’s website says the following about the name of choice: “The dawn has always been a symbol of hope and holds the potential for positive change…It is our hope that in a spirit of cooperation, education and community, SAKRIBAL can add to the positive development of Guatemala.”
[It is my own personal theory that the school was also a “place where the dawn broke” for Doña Olga and her daughters, but that is up for debate.]
Not only has Doña Olga successfully managed to run this school for two decades, but she also raised her girls on her own and made sure that they got a chance to succeed; there is one doctor in the family, two communications specialists, and one graphic designer. She reasoned that if her four girls could go to college and have lucrative careers, other girls should have that opportunity as well. So she set up a scholarship program for indigenous girls living in the outskirts of Xela with little to no opportunity for educational advancement. You can find a list of the girls that Sakribal is currently sponsoring here.
Doña Olga confides in me however that she has had to scramble bits and pieces to pay the school’s rent. “It’s been a tough year,” she says. “Thank God all these students came in now because I was finally able to pay the overdue rent!”
The only time she gets emotional during our engaging chat is when she tells me about one of the scholarship recipients that has recently graduated from college and landed a stable job. “I’ve known her since she was a little girl, and she just graduated. I’m so proud,” she says, wiping away a few tears. She apologizes and quickly straightens herself out.
When I first came to her with the idea for starting this fund, her face quickly lit up. We hunched over the big desk in her wall-less office and she gave me a brief breakdown of how the scholarship money is distributed. Doña gives the girl’s family a monthly sum of Q100 (roughly $13.11 American dollars) throughout the year to help pay for her education. She requests report cards on a bi-annual basis to ensure that the girls are actually attending school. Ideally, she says, she would like to help all the girls in Guatemala. Realistically, she would be happy to help 10 more this year. Therefore, I have set the goal for the scholarship portion at Q12,000, or $1,574. I would also like to help pay the school’s rent for 6 months, which is Q4,000, or $525, a month; for a grand total of Q36,000, or $4,722.Because round numbers are nice, let’s aim for an even $4,800.
Thank you for reading and donating. For more information, visit them at http://www.sakribal.com/index.htm and be sure to like them on Facebook :)
Organizer
Ada Cruz
Organizer
Gainesville, FL