Donated to:
Li Zheng (郑丽)
$205 of $205 donated
Sichuan, China
My family relies on our annual harvest to support all of our expenses. However, due to recent droughts, my parents have had to spend money to buy water for our crops. Due to this new cost in crop harvesting, my brother and I borrowed money from relatives in order to pay for tuition. Sometimes when my parents fall sick, they choose not to receive medical treatment in order to afford our tuition. They normally wait out the illness and hope that they will recover soon, instead of spending the family’s resources that they have reserved to pay for our tuition. But since my older brother and I both have excellent grades at school, my parents deem the sacrifices to be worth it. I recall one instance at school that made my poverty all the more apparent in comparison to my fellow students. When I first entered middle school, my teacher told me that I could not receive any of the new textbooks because my tuition had not been paid in full. Although unwilling and embarrassed, I passed the new...
Irma Tzay Julajuj
$250 of $250 donated
Sololá, Guatemala
Irma should be overwhelmed by her family and life situation but she's not. Rather she's one of those amazing examples of the indomitable resiliency of the human spirit. In this particular family the father is dead and the mother has developed a serious drinking problem. Effectively this leaves Irma as the substitute parent for her many younger siblings all living in extreme poverty. She has already overcome significant odds, and was one of the 5% of indigenous girls in Guatemala to finish elementary school. She stopped her schooling for 2 years after finishing primary school, and resumed her education when Starfish offered her a scholarship. She lives in a rural village above Lake Atitlan and is about to enter the 8th grade. Neither of Irma’s parents had ever attended school, and Irma’s mother was married and a mother by the time she was 15. She is breaking the glass ceiling with every step she takes, and is already the most educated woman in her family. As a bright and ...
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