Guadalupe del Carmen Alas Alas
Community: Los Alas, Las Minas, Chalatenango, El Salvador
Age: 16 years old
School: She will begin her third year of high school at the National High School in Chalatenango in January 2007. She is focusing on accounting. The cost supporting a high school student for a year is $500.
I study because I want to be a better person. Even though I live in poverty, and it weighs heavily on my family and me, I believe that anything can be achieved, if only one puts the necessary effort into working towards what one desires and aspires for.
Since I was a young girl, I have always wanted to at least complete my high school education. Although I did not know what I would study, I always knew that I wanted to study. Now, if all goes well, I hope to graduate from high school with a diploma in accounting and later I want to study in the university. I’d like to study Business Administration and to become a professional. In this way I hope to be able to help my parents, and to make them proud and show them that they can always count on me. I will help them with all that I am able to. I am the only one of their three children that has made it this far in school.
My father’s name is Alberto and he is a farmer and grows corn and beans. My oldest brother buys the necessary tools to work the land, and he and my dad are able to grow food for our family and help us to continue surviving. My mother’s name is Francisca. She takes care of the house and is charge of figuring out how to buy the necessary supplies for the house. This can prove to be very difficult, since my father does not work and earn money outside of the house, and we have no actual income. My parents and brothers make hammocks, however, they are not able to sell them for very much. But what they do sell provides us with our only outside money to live.