Education changes everything.
Healthcare. People from all ethnicities, ages, and economic backgrounds are talking about one of the most important subjects of the 21st century. People discuss the merits of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to United Nations Millennium Development Goals to the United States’ recently passed healthcare reform bill. We tend [...]
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Over the last couple months, we’ve been spinning up a new program called updates@ to directly gather updates from Vittana students in our partner countries. Today, we’re excited give a quick preview of this program. We’ve already received updates for many of our students, and each update is published the student’s [...]
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In the first minute of my conversation with Maria I could sense that she had a tremendous enthusiasm for life and was focused on helping other people. Both traits will undoubtedly be advantageous when she graduates in December with a degree in nursing. Meet Maria de los Angeles Noguera from [...]
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When most of us think about paying for a college education, a few things come to mind: It’s going to be expensive. It’s going to take sacrifice. It’s going to take hard work. According to collegeboard.com, average tuition and fees for U.S. college in the 2009-2010 academic year range from [...]
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When I arrived in Nicaragua ten days ago I transitioned officially from Vittana lender to Vittana fellow. In some ways, I get to do what I imagine other lenders would do if they had the time and the means: travel to the corners of the developing world where Vittana has [...]
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Have you looked closely at the bios of any of our students lately? They have amazingly compelling stories. Often, it is our Fellows who meet them in person and tell their stories (like here, here and here), but as we are currently in a brief lull between Fellows, I am [...]
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In a recent entry here on the blog, Vittana Fellow Nayna Gupta told the story of Mercy Marilu, a young woman from Lima, Peru. Mercy, who works as a primary school teacher, received a Vittana loan to help her finish a degree in early childhood education. Mercy’s story was inspiring—after [...]
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At age 15, Mercy Marilu, known by friends as a bookworm, planned to attend college and dreamed one day of teaching as a professor. But at 18, she was forced to put her dreams on hold for something far less glamorous— selling roast chicken on a dusty street corner in [...]
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When I asked 18-year-old Vittana student Jeffery Nuñez for his secret recipe for rocoto relleno, my favorite signature Peruvian dish, he agreed but with one condition: first, I had to join him and his family for a home-cooked traditional lunch. Happy to escape for an elongated lunch break, I accepted [...]
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[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxoJ88WPnPU[/youtube] Eduardo Castro Quiroz and his mother Martha live in a tiny, crumbling store at the end of a dusty street in El Progreso Carabayllo, a neighborhood in the cono norte area of Lima. Overflowing with dilapidated shanty homes and teeming with stray dogs, Eduardo’s street is a world apart [...]
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