Higher education for indigenous students in Mexico

Dear friends it is wonderful to write to you again about our  residential program here at Centro de Compartimiento.  We are at the end of the school year here in Juchitan, Oaxaca and most of the students have gone home for the summer to enjoy time with their families and take a well earned break.  Summer vacation is shorter here in Mexico than in many parts of the world with high school classes finishing only this past week and middle and grade schools still with three weeks to go on the school calendar.  As you may have heard in the news Mexico and our state,Oaxaca, are going through turbulent times.  The teachers unions in the country, but especially in Oaxaca, continue to protests the educational reform passed by the federal government several years ago.  With corruption rampant on all sides it is diffcult to see if students and families will benefit from  the changes to the system either side is proposing. For now the children in preschool through middle school have been without classes for the past month with no end to the strike in sight.  We are doing our best to help small groups of local school children occupied for short times during the day.  This week we will start a three week reading program for children ages 8-12 run by volunteers and residential students.  The groups will focus on reading skills and comprension and also relaxation techinques to help the kids cope with the stress of the violence and upheaval around us. Above is a picture of students who were involved this spring in similar reading circles.

This year we are proud to say that all of our students enrolled in our residencial program have sucessfully completed another level of school  We have three graduates this summer.  Perla is graduating from high school and has applied at  two different universities to study sustainable development.  The Mexican system of college enrollement has students recieving their accpetance to programs in mid July so we are waiting for Perla to inform us about her final decision.  Karina is also graduating from high school this month.  She has enrolled in a cosmotolgoy program in a neighboring city and will being classes in the fall. 

Maylit graduates from nursing school this July. Mayit is from a small village in eastern Oaxaca, she was raised by her grandmother and grandfather after her mother contracted Trichanosis when Maylit was a toddler.  Maylit's mother survived the illness, but is confined to her bed or a wheel chair and cannot easily leave the home.  The village is a two hour drive from any medical facility and no physical therapy was available to help her recover.  Maylit came to CDC two years ago when, after supporting her through two years of college, the family could no longer afford to help her stay in school.  Despite having lived on here own since highschool Maylit fit into the CDC program well and became a mentor and friend to many of the younger students.  This past winter Maylit became the second CDC student to finish our four month adult Servant Leadership course which we offer to women in our community.  Her fellow students and the women in the group were able to support her emotinally this spring when her grandmother died of cancer.  Maylit has always known that as an only child she will be responsible for the care of her mother in the future and she has worked hard to be able to have a career that will help her have the skills and income needed to care for her mother.   This next year she will be giving her year of national service as a nurse, most likely in a small rural village much like her home town.  Her family has banded together to promise her that they will continue to care for her mother as she finishes this final phase of her training.

This past month she showed her understanding of the Servant Leadership model when the women in her class stated that they wanted to support her family in creating ramps in her village home for her mother so that wheelchair access would be easier.  She spoke about the prospect to her family and friends in the village and they decided that it was a project that the community could support and the local men and women donated cement and labor and built the necessary ramps in her grandparent's home.  She then could asked the women in her group to help with the repair needed for her mother's wheelchair, a skill which no one in the village could provide.  She helped mobilize the talents of two groups to help her mother get around the home more easily in the absence of her grandmother.  A true example of Servant Leadership in practice.

With out your support Maylit would not have been able to continue her education. We thank you for all the support you have given to CDC in the past years and hope you will continue with us as we walk with these remarkable young women.  I urge you to engage in dialog with us about Servant Leadership and our CDC community and  we ask you to keep our young women and region in your prayers as we go through this time of social turmoil.