Higher education for indigenous students in Mexico

It is the beginning of the new school year here in Juchitan, Oaxaca, Mexico. Our students are all returning from summer vacation. Some spent vacation with their family some spent vacation in practicums. The beginning of the new school year is challenging for all students and in the state of Oaxaca here in Mexico we have the additional challenges of ongoing teacher strikes and turbulence in our educational system. Although the education system in Oaxaca is highly dysfunctional most of the challenges our students face are personal. One student, 21, who has been with us since she was 15 years old has faced family resistance every step of the way of her struggle to get a higher education. Her family pulled her out of school after third grade and sent her to work. Her father, who now lives out of the country, wants her to stay home and work to provide an income for her mother and three younger siblings, especial now that she has finished high school. Her mother does not seem to want to work. This summer when she went home for a visit she had to deal with her father, who from a distance, wants to kick her mother off of the family property, and siblings who are in emotional and legal trouble. Her father has sent family members to threaten her mother, and her mother who has long lived in domestic violence does not have the skills to cope with the situation. Our student had to deal with family protective services, legal services, and human rights services and her own families reluctance to cross their father, with only frequent phone calls to get support from our program. She comes back to us with the ongoing stress and worry about what is going to happen to her family while is studying. Even though she knows, deep inside, that living with her family will not solve any of their problems, as her mother is the one who needs to take charge of her own life, she cannot completely let the emotional stress go. This is a struggle that she faces every day. Nominally our program is to help young women to get an education, to get ahead in life, but our experience and now studies have shown that there are many factors in poverty-stricken families that do not have anything to do with finances that prevent young people from getting ahead even if they're offered the opportunity to study. Studies have shown that young people from impoverished situations often have not developed the skills to reach out for help and have poor decision making skills. (This American Life, Ep. 550, Three Miles, March 15, 2015). Our residential program no only provides access to education for young women but also we are providing ongoing emotional and spiritual support so that they can learn how to deal with the problems that are thrown at them. We are available to the students 24/7 to talk, encourage and support. In US colleges this type of support has been called intrusive advising here we like to call it "family". We thank you for helping us provide a healthy family environment for young women, we consider you to be our extended family and hope you will continue to support these wonderful young women as they walk the road to a different life.

Centro de Compartimiento is a program that focuses on getting young women further along in school and helping them with personal development so that they can make better choices about their lives and have more opportunities after they leave the program. As each student nears the end of a level of education they have to make a decision about their next step. We work closely with each student to walk with them in the decision process.   Lucy is at one of these points in her life. This June she will finish high school, and she had to make a choice about her next step. Lucy has used her time well at Centro de Compartimiento, and has learned about her strengths and weakness, improved her communication skills and learned to live in community. At this point in her life Lucy is not in love with academics, she loves learning but she is not a strong student and understands that university will possibly be a struggle for her. She feels she is not ready to take that step, but does not want leave her community and work and live on her own. She is passionate about social justice, loves music,gardening, learning new skills, teaching and working with young people.

            This past spring we took the students in the program on a Learning Exchange trip. The idea was to take to the students to see other programs that also work with indigenous young people. We live on a sea level plain where our temperature never gets below 70 F, and we have eight months of the year with no rain fall. We drove out five hours and up to two thousand meters above sea level to the city of San Cristobal in the neighboring state of Chiapas. There we found cool pine forests, rain and temperatures in the mid 50's. In San Cristobal the indigenous cultures are strong but very different from the ones in our region. This was the first time out traveling out of the state for most of the students (and we are only one hour away from the state border).

            We visited a program that does not focus on academic but on vocational training. The program supports over one hundred residential students, mostly middle and high school age, to learn a vocation to take back to their villages to work. Lucy was impressed with the program and after living in Centro de Compartimiento she began to wonder if a good next step was to volunteer for a time at this program helping younger students and learning some vocational skills to better decided if college is the right path for her. During our visit she spoke to the director of the program, and upon returning home she found that several of the staff at her high school know of and are impressed with the program. She is using skills learned at Centro de Compartimiento to make a choice about her future, and her current choice is to give a year of service to others as she finds her own path.

            Thanks to all of you, Lucy had the opportunity to finish her high school, learn valuable decision making skills and now is poised to pass on to others what she has learned. The gift you gave to Centro de Compartimiento does not just support a group of students to keep going in school, but to help young women to make good choices about their lives and forge new paths for themselves and others. We all have time, talent or money that we can share in our world. You gave a financial gift and now Lucy is planning to match your gift by giving of her own time and talent. Truly a wonderful multiplication of gifts. We are excited to see what is next for Lucy as she takes this next step in life, we hope you will continue to travel with us in supporting these wonderful young women.

Next month Global Giving is having another matching day and each donation will count  for more.  Centro de Compartimiento has just reached the Leader level on Global Giving and donations on July 15th will be matched at 40%.   Stay  tuned from more information as we draw nearer to the date.