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A New Graduate

Help Needed

Now that we have many students with individual sponsors we need help translating all of the student letters and reports we provide. If your Spanish is strong and you would be interested in helping us with this task please write us at progresa3@gmail.com for more information.

One of our Graduates

Faustina Sis Simón, a graduate of our program, comes from Caserio Chuatacaj 2 outside of San José Poaquil, Chimaltenango. She received our help in 2004 in order to complete the last year of her teaching degree. On July 13th of this year she came to our office in order to repay her debt and to thank us for the financial support that we gave her in her time of need. Since her graduation she has worked at a variety of jobs. She is currently working as a “teacher by contract” (an insecure and poorly paid teaching post) while she waits for a “fixed position” (a better paid and more reliable position).

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The political situation in Guatemala

It has been nine months since the current government was installed. In July the Prensa Libre, one of the major newspapers in the country, did a national survey in order to learn what the citizenry thought about the new administration after six months. One of their major findings was that 69% of those polled thought that the president, Otto Perez Molina, was doing a good job. In comparison only 31.5% of Guatemalans thought that the past president, Alvaro Colom, was doing a good job after six months. The survey indicates that the principle concern of the citizens is security although they recognized that this was an area in which the government has worked hard to improve. When asked what was the least positive area of government, 19% responded that it was the economy. One change will have a direct impact on Progresa students, namely the requirements for a primary school teaching degree. Primary teachers must now complete three years of secondary school education. In the future this degree will require five years, two in secondary school and three at the university level. Current teachers will also need to take two more years of classes in order to maintain their certification. Needless to say there has been a lot of opposition to this change, especially from students and teachers who feel it will make it more difficult for them to earn a teaching degree and thus have a chance to get a better paying job. Although we recognize the difficulties, we think increasing the education requirement for teachers is a good idea because the current teacher preparation is very poor and is not adequate to the needs of primary school students.

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Wednesday
Dec042013

Fall 2013

Meet One of Our Graduates

Eduardo Roland Castro from Tejutla in the department of San Marcos was helped by our program to finish his medical degree from 1999 to 2001. His family had worked hard to help him begin his medical classes but at the end of his third year it became impossible for them to continue helping him. According to Eduardo he had decided to abandon his studies and illegally immigrate to the US in order to earn some money when a friend told him about Progresa and he decided to ask for our help. We accepted him because of his good grades and he was able to graduate as a general practioner. Some years later he returned to school became a specialist in internal medicine. Later still he became certified in Intensive Medicine. He has worked as head of the department of Intensive Medicine at the national hospital in Xela and also in San Marcos. Both positions represent an extremely high level of achievement for one of our students but he has now left these high status jobs to open his own office in San Marcos where according to him there are very few medical specialists.


Eduardo contacted us by telephone in July when he received one of our letters. According to him, he had not received any of our earlier letters or Boletines and had lost contact with us completely before a family member passed this letter on to him. He arranged to visit with us while we were in Quetzaltenango. When we spoke with him, he expressed his appreciation to the program for the help he had received and told us that if it hadn’t been for our help in finishing his studies his life would have been very different. A very important gesture was that during the visit he gave us a check which repaid Progresa for the entire portion of his stipend which was given as a loan. He also agreed to let us make a short video of him thanking Progresa for its support. The video was taken with one of our point and shoot cameras so the audio is not great but we have posted it on Youtube if you would like to see it. The link is: http://youtube.com/hDKPOXYOwr4

Posted on DateWednesday, December 4, 2013 at 03:55PM

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