Develop Leaders in At-Risk Communities, Costa Rica

I met Tatiana in 2015. As a volunteer, I decided to begin an English class in Los Cuadros, one of the two communities where El Niño y la Bola was working at the time. When we began to enroll students, there was an unexpectedly high number of registrations. Although I am a trained English teacher, I was unsure how to handle this taking into consideration the community dynamics and population. I was new to the community and the organization. We decided to admit 40 students to begin and had a strict attendance policy. Tatiana was one of these students. The module would last 4 months and we met two nights a week. After the first month, the group was down to about 30 students and by the 3rd month, we were at about 20. These 20 were committed and the relationships in the class began transforming from classmates to friends. It was a diverse group, age, gender, academic and socioeconomic levels, but none of this mattered. The group fused into 20 people who shared a community and wanted better for their lives. They helped each other with homework, walked home together, and waited with me at night while I waited for the bus to go home. The class became very dear to me and before the final exam, I was thinking of all the special ways we could end this first module together. An acquaintance gave me the contact of someone at Wizard Language Institute. I went and had a meeting and shared with them what we were doing in the community and how this group played a role and they offered to give a scholarship to enter their well known institute. I was so excited and shared with the class the next lesson that the student who had the best grade on the final exam along with the best attendance records would be given this full scholarship for 8 levels at the institute. There were a few class members who were quite advanced, although they all began at basic. Most of the class just assumed those students would be the best. I was so anxious to know who would win and was glad that it would be based on the numbers so I did not have to decide.

Tatiana was a bright student. She had left high school at an early age to have her first son, and since then had remarried and her life was slowly healing from a dark and difficult past riddled with family violence. In English class, I saw Tatiana shine. She worked so hard and grasped at the opportunity she had in front of her, that when she was younger she wasn’t able to. She was at a place in her life where she was ready to move forward and a community class with uplifting friendships building and motivation was the perfect catapult. 

The week after the exam, I was so excited and surprised to make the announcement to the class. After handing out everyone’s graded exams, but before they could begin to compare. I shared the attendence points on the board. Tati had hardly missed. With those points added to their final scores, the winner of the Wizard scholarship was Tati! Some of the class members were shocked, Tatiana could hardly believe it. SHE had surpassed even the two more advanced students? The numbers showed it. She won. 

Since 2015, Tatiana’s life has changed drastically. Not only is she an advanced English speaker, but she also has a technical degree in administration through a program that the foundation did with ULatina in 2018. Three of ten finished that and she was one of them. Finally, last month, a day we were all waiting for, she got the results that she passed her final exam for her high school degree. After she took the test, I don’t know who was more nervous about the results, me or her. 

Tatiana’s story is a powerful one. It was not one class, one person or opportunity that turned her life around. Just like our name, Boy with a Ball, Tatiana had her life in her hands, and when she became a part of a group that helped her uncover that potential, the rest is history. From that moment, she had the confidence, clarity and faith that her life was meant for more. Her transformation of the last 5 years not only affects her but has rippled to her two sons and her neighbors. And just like that, one story by one story, communities begin to change.