ANADESA: Meet Carmen!

Carmen is 27. She lives with her parents and four siblings. She describes her mother as brave, humble, and empathic. Her mother taught her to perservere despite the many challenges facing a young, poor, indigenous woman.

Carmen values the culture and history of her community and eagerly listens when her parents and grandparents talk about their life experiences from the past. Her fascination with history extends to international historic documentaries.

She is in her 9th semester of social work at the University Mariano Gálvez. Every Saturday she takes the launch across the lake and a public transport up the hill to the town of Sololá to take classes. She chose social work because she loves her community and wants to be of service to those who need it the most.

She has experienced discrimination for being an indigenous woman and she's determined to help other young women become strong so they can work toward their dreams of a better life for themselves and their families.

During the week she's a memeber of the ANADESA team. Her work includes academic tutoring, creating teaching materials, developing methodology, and planning the classes. She also occasionally leads workshops on special topics that the team has identified as being important for the students.

As part of the ANADESA team, she's learned that the discipline of working together can help realize objectives that she'd never be able to accomplish alone. She has also learned that maintaining life balance is extremely important and part of her weekly strategy for emotional well-being is to attend church with her family.

Whenever she isn't studying or working, she invests her extraordinary energy into playing basket ball and soccer with friends.

This is how she describes ANADESA to people who've never heard of it before: Anadesa ensures the common well-being of communities that are vulnerable due to life situations.