By Kay Sweeney | Managing Director
In July 2018, six young women finished their internships ready to seek permanent employement. They all now have the work experience they need to support their applications for professional employment. This month is high school graduation in Guatemala. That means that another group of young women are eagerly looking for job with the same obstacle - lack of work experience. The Kateri Fund is gathering together the funding needed to again shepherd at least six young women through the process by providing them with year long internships.
Aura is one of the young women who is applying. She graduated in October with a certificate as a bookkeeper. She has overcome all the obstacles put in front of her up to now with her positive spirit and can do attitude. Ahead of her is one more- finding a job. The Kateri Fund wants to support her as she faces this challenge.
Aura lives in a small village outside of the city of Comalapa. Her family works in the fields growing vegetables to sell. They have a few coffee plants to harvest. They have had to struggle with the illness of the father of the family. This made it difficult for them to do the work needed to survive. Despite the difficulties, they have struggled to keep Aura and her six siblings in school.
Aura and her mother are very close. In 2006, she le As the oldest, she and her mother worked together to sustain the family during her father illness. In 2006, she left school after fifth grade. Her mother needed her at home to help. After six years, when her father recuperated, she returned to finish elementary school at 18 years old. A difficult thing to do! She was so much older than the other students, but with her positive attitude and happy spirit, she fit in. She became someone the others looked up to.
Now at 23 years old, she has graduated! She has a career! All of her teachers have predicted success for her in the future. Hers is a story of persistence, a positive attitude, and a family that believes in her, but she still has a difficult task ahead and needs support. She will have to support herself and help her family, too, so cannot be without work for long. For her and others, this often leads to taking a low paying job that does not use her skills. A Kateri internship will help get her aclimated to the world of work and open a different path.
We plan on starting our next group of interns in January, but without your donations we will need to terminate the program. Giving Tuesday is coming up on November 27th. GlobalGiving will be matching funds donated on that day. Aura and the other young women like her will benefit from your donation that day. If we reach our goal of $10,000, we can start receiving applications and start the project on time in January. Recurring donations always give the projects more security. If you can budget a monthly donation toward these internships, you will be making it possible for these young women to lift themselves out of poverty and become independent professional women.
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