More Literacy Outcomes 

José Luis Chancho (left) and his family cultivated vegetables for export. “I knew that right after sixth grade, I would join my dad working on the field,” he says. “That’s what my siblings did. None of them kept studying.”

 

But when he heard about the Rise scholarship, Chancho redoubled his efforts in his classes, earning outstanding grades and a spot in the program. Chancho graduated from high school in 2015 and works as an accountant for a pharmaceutical company, using the money to put himself through college.

 

When the pandemic started, he called Cooperative for Education and offered to make math and accounting videos for current students. “If it weren’t for the program, I might have taken a very wrong path,” he says.

Jáckelyn Xiquín Lúc and her twin sister, Joselyn, studied at a middle school supported by the Guatemala Literacy Project with a computer lab and textbooks. But the family didn’t have enough money for them to continue their studies, so the sisters dropped out, earning bits of money from an uncle who is a farmer and learning from their mother to weave huipiles, traditional garments.

 

They returned to school when Rise scholarships were introduced in their village three years later, and in 2019, both earned Microsoft Office Specialist certifications in Excel.

 

“Thanks to the opportunity given to me by CoEd [Cooperative for Education], I am where I am today. I am working at a job I like,” Xiquín says. “Education helps you to look for better opportunities.”

Joe Berninger, Howard Lobb, and RI President Jennifer Jones visit with former scholarship student Rosa Ixcoy (holding baby) and her family.

 

Jones sponsored Ixcoy through the Guatemala Literacy Project.